Jorge Lorenzo takes Misano pole

Having broken his previous best lap in this morning’s free practice session, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP rider Jorge Lorenzo kept the pressure on in qualifying this afternoon, taking pole at Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. Teammate Valentino Rossi also showed a great pace in the 15-minute shoot-out and qualified in third position on the first row.

Lorenzo made his trademark early exit from the pits as the 15-minute session began and immediately dropped a first flying lap of 1‘32.357s. On a two-stop strategy, he quickly returned to his pit box with ten minutes remaining for a tyre-change and headed back out less than a minute later.

Back on track, he was ready to put the hammer down and bettered his earlier time, clocking a 1‘32.146s, another new circuit best lap record, and extended his lead to 0.443s from his closest rival.

With a little more than four minutes remaining, he came in for his second stop. He returned to the track with over three minutes remaining and, though he was unable to further improve on his best lap, his pole position time remained unchallenged, giving him his third pole of the season by 0.106s.

JORGE LORENZO
Rather than pole position, it‘s more important to always be first or second; I finished first in all sessions, apart from the first practice, under all kinds of conditions, with new and old tyres. I think we did a good job with the bike during the whole weekend and we have a good setting. We just need to change the last details for tomorrow. It‘s going to be interesting to see how the rear tyre drops as this new tarmac is more abrasive. It will be difficult to keep up the same pace during the whole race, but almost everyone will have the same problems and we are prepared to do a very good race.

Source: Yamaha Racing