Barbera takes 12th position after early crash

Spanish riders dominated qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix, with Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo taking the top two spots on the grid ahead of Casey Stoner to set up a three way factory fight between Honda, Yamaha and Ducati respectively. The Spaniard is sure to try and repeat his Indianapolis escape from a week ago but this is a less technical circuit and as such lends itself to closer racing.

Páginas Amarillas Aspar rider Héctor Barberá set a time in free practice this morning that would have put him on the fourth row of the grid in the afternoon as he completed an excellent job on the race set-up of his Ducati. The scene was set for an excellent qualifying performance but an untimely crash after just ten minutes, when he hit a bump and lost the front, made life difficult for the Spaniard, who returned to the track and worked hard to qualify twelfth.

12th Héctor Barberá 1.35.259 (28 laps): “We did a great job on the set-up this morning and we were in good shape for qualifying but I made a bad start with the crash. Maybe I was a little too over-confident. I took the second bike out and needed a couple of pit stops to change a few things so with the time we lost there and with the crash that pretty much used up the session. I still managed to match the pace I set on my first bike so I’m confident about the race tomorrow. My set-up is good and I think we’re ready. The goal remains to close the gap to the front guys, which we are gradually doing as we saw this morning when I was just half a second off the top. Our pace is decent and if we can get a good start tomorrow we can be fighting for a good result.”

Source: Aspar Ducati Team