Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi will start his 200th Grand Prix from the front row of the grid tomorrow, after a consistent performance in the wet this afternoon put him second for tomorrow’s British round at Donington Park. The Italian will be bidding for his eighth career win at this track but tomorrow promises to be no easy challenge, with today’s wet weather expected to give way to high winds.
After a dry day yesterday today was wet throughout, a steady British drizzle soaking the track and making the already-slippery surface even more difficult to deal with, a situation that gave rise to several crashes in this morning’s free practice. Rossi stayed upright but struggled with set-up issues and remained two seconds off the pace in ninth position. Some hard work from his engineers and mechanics proved fruitful this afternoon however and he was immediately more comfortable in this afternoon’s qualifying session, lapping consistently in the top five. Half way through the session the rain ceased and the track began to dry further and, although a dry racing line never appeared, Rossi was able to put a string of fast laps together in the last twenty minutes and his best time was good enough for second, behind Casey Stoner and just ahead of Chris Vermeulen.
It was a difficult day for Rossi’s team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, who was unable to find a comfortable setting this afternoon after looking promising in this morning’s session. The Spaniard will be in 17th position, on the sixth row, when the British Grand Prix gets underway at 1500 GMT tomorrow.
Valentino RossiPosition: 2nd
Time: 1'38.881
Laps: 30
“I’m so happy with this qualifying result and it’s very important for us that we’re on the front row tomorrow. We know that our Bridgestone tyres are very fast in the wet but this morning we had some problems with the setting and honestly I was quite concerned! Anyway, we made some important changes to the set-up for the afternoon and straight away the balance was better and I was able to open the throttle when I wanted to, in fact I had a lot of fun! With more small modifications throughout qualifying things got even better and lap-by-lap we were able to get faster, especially at the end. Now we are waiting for the weather in order to decide the tyres. If it’s dry we have quite a big question mark about some things but we have some good ideas and I am not too worried. It’s my 200th race and it’ s very exciting for me to reach another landmark in my career but for now I think about it as just another race.”
Davide Brivio - Team Manager “This was a very good session for us and the team and engineers have done an excellent job after this morning, when we had some problems. They had some good ideas and we have made a strong recovery to come back and qualify on the front row. Valentino was riding very well in the wet and it’s very important for him to be on the front row here. Tomorrow could be difficult because it looks like the warm-up will be dry but we’re not so sure for the race, it may be very windy but we will just have to deal with whatever comes!”
Ambient temperature: 12 degrees
Track temperature: 15 degrees
Humidity: 81%
Qualifying Times: FRONT ROW 1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 1'38.232
2. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'38.881 3. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1'39.018
SECOND ROW 4. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 1'39.270
5. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'39.601
6. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 1'39.783
THIRD ROW 7. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing 1'39.995
8. Ben Spies (USA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1'40.244
9. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 1'40.350
FOURTH ROW 10. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'40.417
11. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 1'40.539
12. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1'40.595
FIFTH ROW 13. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'40.667
14. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1'41.110
15. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 1'41.379
SIXTH ROW 16. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'41.751
17. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'41.873 18. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 1'42.933
Donington Park: Record Lap: D. Pedrosa (Honda) 2006, 1'28.714
Best Lap: D. Pedrosa (Honda) 2006, 1'27.676
