Pedrosa only starting from third row despite improved feeling with soft tyre

Dani Pedrosa will start the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island tomorrow only from eighth place on the grid, in third row, an unusually bad qualifying result for the Spaniard.

In the free practice this morning Casey Stoner was the only one to lap under 1 minute and 31 seconds, leaving the second placed Jorge Lorenzo 6 tenths behind and 9 tenths ahead of the third Dani Pedrosa.

Focused on finding a good pace with used tyres to prepare tomorrow’s race, Stoner was slightly unnoticed in the first half of the qualifying, which was led at the beginning by Jorge Lorenzo and then by Dani Pedrosa, followed closely by the Australian. The Spaniard of the Repsol Honda Team lapped for the first time in the weekend under 1 minute and 31 seconds by mid session; nevertheless, he was not able to improve his time further and tomorrow will be forced to start from the third row, in eighth place, despite finishing just one tenth and a half away from the fastest time.

Dani Pedrosa FP3 – 1:31.465, 21 laps, 93 km. QP – 1:30.871, 28 laps, 125 km.
“I had some problems with the hard tyre and I wasn’t able to be fast. Then when I put the soft on I improved my lap time a lot and was on top with fifteen minutes to go. Then we changed the set up of the bike a little and unfortunately it didn’t work, so when everybody improved the lap time I couldn’t and I was back to eighth place.
The main issue I had today was changing direction in high speed areas. Let’s see what the weather brings tomorrow and if we can take profit from the warm up to improve the set up slightly.
I’m feeling much more comfortable with the soft tyre, so we will see tomorrow if we can use it for the race or not depending on the temperature and weather conditions”.

Source: Repsol Media