There were mixed fortunes for Yamaha’s factory team during today’s qualifying session at Jerez de la Frontera.
Reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo celebrated a very happy 26th birthday with another pole position to add to his growing record (he has 27 in MotoGP) and on the track where he debuted for the first time in GP racing the circuit officially unveiled Lorenzo’s corner.
Despite the hot (about 20° more than yesterday) and slippery surface conditions, Lorenzo rode to his second pole position of the season with a by 0.
247s margin over Dani Pedrosa, but as usual it is his race pace that is enviable, and he doesn’t look like he will have tire wear issues, despite concerns raised by all the riders regarding the durability of the soft compound.
I’m happy with this pole position, it’s a good present for my birthday! I knew the track was not perfect, it’s very warm and there were a lot of crashes in Moto2 and the previous qualifying.
I just tried to make the perfect lap, unfortunately I couldn’t; I made a mistake in two braking zones and went wide and lost some tenths.
Anyway, in the other corners I was really quick and at the limit so it was enough to make it.
It’s going to be tough tomorrow, normally the lap time you make for qualifying you can’t repeat in another time because the tyre drops.
We hope to improve the bike a little bit to get more comfortable with pace.
Anyway I think we can fight for the win or at least for the podium tomorrow,” said the birthday boy.
Valentino Rossi will start 5th in tomorrow’s Spanish GP and you have to go back to Valencia 2010 to find him in a better qualifying position.
The Italian rider crashed at the Criville corner after losing the front of his Yamaha, but walked away with no consequences.
Rossi said, “Today the practices were not so bad.
The position is the best qualifying for us this year.
The second row is quite good; we can also do better.
Unfortunately at the end I had a crash but I’m ok, I don’t have any problems so we are more or less ready for tomorrow.
The bigger issue is how high the rhythm will be with the used tyre.
Especially with the hot conditions the rear tyre slides a lot so it is important to see how high the rhythm is after seven or eight laps.
Now we try to make the best setting and we will see tomorrow.
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