Important first row for Dani at Phillip Island

The penultimate round of the 2012 season will see Dani Pedrosa starting from the front row for the eleventh race in a row. Dani, with a best lap time of 1’30.575, found more feeling in the qualifying practice and was improving his pace on his last exit when the rain appeared finally placing him 0.9 off Casey.

The qualifying practice at Phillip Island was a repetition of the previous four years: Dani’s Repsol Honda teammate Casey setting the pace and the rest of the field chasing the Australian hero, who has been unstoppable during the whole weekend. Despite a crash on Turn 4, on his out lap of his third run, Casey didn’t lose too much confidence and continued to improve his times to secure pole position with 1’29.623, his fifth of the 2012 season and fifth successive in Phillip Island.

DANI PEDROSA
“I was trying some different things on the bike to get a little more comfortable, but they didn’t work out very well for the middle of the session. On my first soft rear tyre I couldn’t improve and then on my last run I was going quicker on the first lap and rain arrived. Anyway to be on the front row again is very good and I think we found a good bike setting for tomorrow’s race. Casey is unreachable, he’s on another level and doing an amazing job this weekend, but my pace is quite similar to Jorge’s, so I hope to be at least constant for the fight with him”.

Source: Repsol Media