Jorge Lorenzo secures front row spot on Indianapolis grid

Despite a changeable forecast for this afternoon’s qualifying session it held dry for Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Jorge Lorenzo to secure third place on the grid for tomorrow’s Indianapolis Grand Prix.

Lorenzo started the 15-minute qualifying session from the back, leaving the pit lane last to be ensured of a clear path for his first flying laps. He quickly found his pace and led the qualifying session when he set his first hot lap of 1’32.177 seconds with ten minutes to go.

Lorenzo came into the pits with seven minutes remaining for fresh rubber before returning to the track for a last five-minute dash. With less than a minute on the clock the Spaniard achieved a personal best time of 1’31.869 seconds, leaving him third, just a quarter of a second from pole man Marc Marquez.

He had one lap left to improve his time, but was forced to slow his pace due to a crash by Bradley Smith and will start tomorrow’s race from the first row of the grid.

Jorge Lorenzo – 3rd | 1’31.869 | 8 Laps
“We tried a new setting during Free Practice 4 with the hard tyre but it wasn’t good. We have to understand what the problem was; if the tyre wasn’t right or if the setting wasn’t good. With the soft tyre the bike was working quite well and when we tried the hard tyre yesterday it was working really good. Tomorrow in the warm-up we will see if the feeling is ok with the hard tyre. During the qualifying I tried to put in a very good lap time. After the first try I was very satisfied with the lap. The second time I wanted to improve a little bit more but I came across so many riders waiting for a tow that I couldn’t ride like I did before. I went just two tenths of a second faster, but it was enough to give me this first row, which is a good position.”

Source: Yamaha MotoGP