Jorge Lorenzo will have to start tomorrow’s Brno race in fifth, his worse qualifying position this season, if we exclude Assen and Indianapolis where he was still recovering from collarbone surgery.
The Yamaha rider was unable to replicate his performance in the fifteen minute time attack, suffering with rear tire spinning, and he was slow exiting from the slower corners, but he hasn’t lost hope as his pace belies his starting position and he can fight for the victory, hoping that Yamaha will soon bring some updates.
“I waited for much more because I wanted to improve seven tenths or a second from the pace to make a fast lap but I couldn’t take profit from the power of the new tyre.
We had so much spinning and we went slow.
The pace from all the top riders is quite similar so it’s going to be important to get a good start and try to overtake some riders at the beginning of the race and then we will see how we are,” said Lorenzo.
Valentino Rossi ended up in 7th, and qualifying has become the Italian’s bete noir and this time he was even slower than Tech3’s rookie Bradley Smith.
Rossi’s pace is good, but starting so far back he could again be caught in the middle of field in the first couple of laps and lose the front runners.
The Italian also had some complaints about the qualifying format saying that a lot of riders waste time trying to shake off slower rider who are looking for tow – obviously he was referencing Alvaro Bautista who grabbed a second spot on the grid, thanks to Marc Marquez.
“At the end I’m not so happy because seventh position is my worst position of the weekend and it was qualifying,” said Rossi.
“I improved my lap time but the other guys were faster.
My target was to start in the first five but unfortunately I have to start from seventh on the third row.
Anyway, I have a good pace and was always with the front guys in the free practices.
Now we have to make some changes to the bike, we have been competitive all weekend so I think and I hope we can be competitive during the race.
Yesterday the harder tyre we used was good but today it was no good, maybe because it was ten degrees less, so I think we will use the soft tomorrow.
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