Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi took his fifth front row start of the 2008 season at Assen today, ahead of tomorrow’s 60th Dutch TT. The Italian missed out on pole by just 0.139 seconds and will share the front row with Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa, his closest championship rivals.
The bright sunshine of yesterday gave way to bad weather this morning and the first session was run on a wet track, with Rossi finishing seventh. The sun came out after lunch and the track was dry for qualifying, giving the team some time to continue with yesterday’s work and refine their dry set-up. During the last third of the session Rossi was able to improve with each of his Bridgestone qualifying tyres and looked to be in with a chance of pole on his final flying lap, when a small problem in the final sector lost him his advantage. Second place behind Stoner looked secure until a last-minute dash from Pedrosa relegated him to the outside of the front row, with his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo two rows behind him in seventh.
Rain is a possibility tomorrow and with the weather at Assen generally changing extremely quickly, the team may have to wait until just before the race to make a final tyre decision. Tomorrow’s 26-lap race will begin at 1400 CET.
Valentino RossiPosition: 3rd
Time: 1'35.659
Laps: 29
“Like always, the front row is our target and so we are happy with this third position. Anyway it’s better than last year, when I was 11th! We made some small modifications with the qualifying tyre and today everything seemed to work very well. Now we hope that it will translate to the race tyre, although of course we have to wait and see what the weather is like before we can make a choice, things change so quickly here! I was able to try for pole and I thought it was possible on the last lap, but unfortunately I had a small problem with the last tyre. Today we were all very close, closer than yesterday, but I think we still need to improve a bit more if we’re going to be sure to be able to fight with Casey, so we will try to finalise things tomorrow morning.”
Davide Brivio - Team Manager “It’s very good to be on the front row and it was good to see Valentino so fast this afternoon with the qualifying tyre and going very close to pole position. We still have some important final tuning to do in order to be able to stay at the front tomorrow, and then we will just have to see how the race develops. Of course we’re all hoping for it to be dry but it’s difficult to know what to expect with the weather here! It’s clear that Stoner is very strong again, but we will be hoping to be able to go with him.”
Ambient temperature: 20 degrees
Track temperature: 29 degrees
Humidity: 44%
Qualifying Times: FRONT ROW 1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 1'35.520
2. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 1'35.552
3. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'35.659SECOND ROW 4. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 1'35.975
5. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1'35.985
6. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'36.278
THIRD ROW 7. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'36.532
8. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1'36.768
9. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'36.804
FOURTH ROW 10. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1'36.823
11. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 1'36.899
12. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'36.948
FIFTH ROW 13. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'36.978
14. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 1'37.287
15. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 1'37.643
SIXTH ROW 16. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing 1'37.793
17. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 1'38.726
AssenRecord Lap: N. Hayden (Honda) 2006, 1'37.106
Best Lap: J. Hopkins (Suzuki) 2006, 1'36.411
