Pedrosa confirms great form with first pole position of the season
After the great level shown by Dani Pedrosa yesterday in the first day of practice at the Brno Circuit, the Repsol rider confirmed his excellent performance by setting the fastest time of the Qualifying session held this afternoon. Pedrosa will start from the first position of a grid where Casey Stoner will also be in the first row and Andrea Dovizioso in the third after the seventh fastest time he achieved today.
The rain that fell during the night and part of the morning had an effect on the third free practice, which was held with the track still wet, despite the rain having stopped. Under those conditions, at the beginning of the session Casey Stoner crashed on the third corner when he had only done two laps. Despite having to be stopped in the box for some minutes, the Australian completed 13 laps and set the fastest time, while Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso finished in fourth and eighth position respectively.
In the qualifying session and with the track completely dry, Pedrosa took the initiative once again. He was the first one to ride in the 1 minute 57 seconds and, as it happened yesterday, Casey Stoner was the one to push the Spaniard to do his best, as he was the only rider able to lap in the same second as his team mate. As minutes went by, Jorge Lorenzo and even Ben Spies started to set similar times, although 15 minutes from the end Pedrosa recovered the first position on the times sheet, with a time of 1 minute, 56 seconds and 660 thousandths.
Jorge Lorenzo tried to improve his time, but despite keeping a good pace for several laps he was not able to get the pole position, and also saw how his countryman improved his time in a last lap riding to the limit. In the end, Pedrosa finished 113 thousandths ahead of the Yamaha rider and 269 ahead of his team mate at the Repsol Honda Team, Casey Stoner.
Dani Pedrosa FP3 – 2:07.652, 18 laps, 97 km. QP – 1:56.591, 25 laps, 135 km.
“It’s my first pole of the year and also after a long time, so I’m very happy for that. The weekend has been pretty good for us so far, the bike is working well and I’m feeling good physically as well.We made only a few small changes on the bike and this allowed me to concentrate more on my riding, so let’s hope we are able to keep the pace tomorrow and fight for a good result.
This is the most important thing and we need to keep our feet on the ground because the rivals are close. I think we can still improve the bike a little, especially on the chassis side to have better grip, even though I guess that the rain this morning affected the conditions on track which made it more slippery”.
Source: Repsol Media