Despite taking his first pole position of the season at Estoril and stopping Jorge Lorenzo’s record Casey Stoner wasn’t exactly happiest rider in the parc ferme to be interviewed.
The Repsol Honda rider is lamenting a right set-up balance and he’s still having some chattering issues and his rear tire is spinning, something that all the MotoGP riders are now complaining about.
Dani Pedrosa who qualified just 0.
013s from his Repsol Honda team mate had electronics and brake gremlins and he wasn’t too happy about Ben Spies, saying that the Yamaha factory rider got in his way, a sentiment that was also repeated by Andrea Dovizioso, who despite his qualifying seventh is happy with his race pace.
Valentino Rossi who had electronic problems twice on his Ducati, also mentioned riders being baulked in the last minutes of the session, only he didn’t put all the blame on the slower CRTs, citing that some riders including the ones on prototype machines hang back waiting to catch a tow and on a tight track like Estoril this causes problems.
Casey Stoner – 1st“In general it’s been a good day for us and I’m really happy to get pole.
FP3 was positive and we made progress on the bike, we had the bike turning well with good front feeling.
Unfortunately in qualifying we tried to improve it further but managed to lose the good points! We did find a little better feeling in the rear but we couldn’t get the bike to turn and do what we wanted it to.
We’ve been pretty fast in every session and our race pace gives us confidence but we’ll have to have a think about which set up direction we go for in warm up and hope this is the best for the race.
I was sorry to see Colin has broken his collar bone again and I send him by best wishes.
” Dani Pedrosa – 2nd“I think we did a good job in qualifying and to be on the front row here after all the issues we had is a great thing.
I couldn’t put too many good laps together because I had some problems on the bike, first with the brakes, then with the electronics and by the end I was feeling good but we had to stop again due to the red flag.
I honestly think that in the last minutes of the session I could have taken the pole but there was a lot of traffic and I missed it by just 0.
013.
The race will be very tough tomorrow because the track conditions are poor, the grip is low and it makes the tyres spin a lot.
We will try to set up our bike a little better for tomorrow to do our best in the race.
”Cal Crutchlow – 3rd “To be back on the front row again is a really great achievement for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team and this is reward again for all of our hard work.
I am really happy as well to be the fastest Yamaha because that proves what a good job all of us are doing.
I was actually going to scrap my best lap but I made up some time in the last sector and it was good enough for the top three.
I’m happy with that but we still have to improve the bike a bit more for the race.
I want it to turn a little better and brake a little better.
”Jorge Lorenzo – 4th “The main problem for me today was that in turn one and two I couldn’t enter aggressively so I lost a lot of time in this section.
In general the bike is not giving me a good feeling so this lap time was the maximum I could get today.
We are in fourth but tomorrow is going to be hard, as I have to try to pass Cal who is a hard braker! I will keep thinking positive and see what we can do.
”Ben Spies – 5th“It was a tough session for everybody, the annoying thing was that three of my best laps were blocked but that’s just the way it goes.
Two of them I think could have been avoided but one of them was just a racing incident.
We’re on the second row in the middle and we’re a lot better than we were in Jerez.
I feel good on the bike and I just need to keep building the confidence now.
Being three tenths behind Jorge at this track is pretty good.
”Alvaro Bautista – 6th“We did a good job today.
This morning we completed race distance on the hard tyre and it was a positive session.
Everything went according to plan in the afternoon too, but on the last soft tyre we ran into a lot of traffic on track and when I tried to push on the very last lap I came up behind Spies in the first turn.
It is a dangerous thing to do and I think it is up to all us riders to make sure that when we slow down we move aside and make way for the guys coming behind us.
Anyway, a second row start is good for us having qualified on the fourth row in Qatar and the third row at Jerez.
Tomorrow we need to make a good start and if we can stay with the guys at the front over the opening laps we can look forward to a good race.
”Andrea Dovizioso – 7th “I’m quite angry to have qualified down in seventh today because we could have done much better.
It is always tricky when you have to start from the third row of the grid and I hope my starting position is not going to hamper me at the start of the race.
Getting a good start will be crucial but I am really satisfied about my pace on the hard tyre.
I was third fastest and only 0.
2s behind Lorenzo on the hard tyre, so I think my rhythm for the race is going to be very competitive.
”Hèctor Barberà – 8th“I struggled a little yesterday, because of the tricky track conditions, but today I’m much happier and confident with my GP12.
I’m so happy to be the most consistent and fastest Ducati on the field, even if towards the end I dropped more than three tenths of a second.
Today’s result highlights the excellent work done by my crew and I have to say thanks to everybody.
”Valentino Rossi – 9th“The day wasn’t bad in the end.
We’re on the third row, 0.
8 seconds behind pole position, and we’re matching the pace of the intermediate group, after the top four.
We’ve worked better this weekend, steadily making small improvements, and now I’m able to ride closer to the limit and push harder on the bike.
We have a lot of work to do, especially on acceleration, where we’re losing time, but for sure it’s our best session so far.
Tyres will be important, because the soft is difficult to manage to the end, whereas with the hard, it’s very difficult to push in the beginning.
We’re leaning toward the soft, but we’ll wait for tomorrow to decide.
”Nicky Hayden – 10th “Obviously, this isn’t where we wanted to be.
I’m one second from the top, which sometimes isn’t that far off, but here I’m in tenth place.
All weekend, we just haven’t been able to find that last little bit, as I’ve had a lot of little problems.
For whatever reason, we’re not getting the bike to work the tyre properly, and it’s not really gripping the track.
I used the same hard tyre the entire morning session, so I thought I’d take more of a step in qualifying.
Some of my used tyres still look like new, but they’re just spinning.
On a positive note, I went much faster than I did here last year in qualifying.
”Stefan Bradl – 11th“We have been unlucky today: without the red flag we could take the 7th spot on the grid.
I am a bit disappointed because we were doing a good job improving a lot the bike compared with yesterday when we were far away from the top.
Today we are just one second to the top but during my quickest lap I saw the red flag in the last corner.
Starting from the 11th spot will be more complicate in the beginning of the race but I think we made a good job today and I was capable to adapt my riding style to this track”.
Aleix Espargaro – 12th“It has always been our objective to be the fastest CRT bike but I didn’t think it would happen today.
Randy had a second over me this morning but I knew that wasn’t indicative because he had a new tyre on and I didn’t.
I put the new tyre on this afternoon and could have gone even quicker.
So far this is the closest we have been to the MotoGP bikes and we’re improving every session.
The only thing is that we only have two units of the new front tyre, which solves our chatter problem, so we have to work on the older stuff for the rest of practice.
It focuses all your work into just a few laps and today I managed to find six tenths of a second with it.
”Randy de Puniet – 14th“It was a really heavy crash with Colin.
I was on a flying lap and came up behind him by surprise.
He wasn’t on the line but I braked hard and lost the front.
I was hoping against hope that neither of us got hurt.
I was lucky not to break anything but it hurts my chest when I breath so I don’t think I’ll be 100% but I’ll do what I can.
I am disappointed because it happened when I was on a new tyre.
Everything went perfectly this morning but the things we tried this afternoon didn’t work and when we went back to the standard setting I crashed.
My objective for tomorrow is the same as ever: to be the first CRT.
”Danilo Petrucci – 20th“They were two difficult days and we have some problems to the rear part of the bike that it moves a lot during the corners’ exit and we were not able to solve them.
Probably this track is not good for my TR003, we suffer in acceleration in the slow corners where we haven’t a good traction, problems the we never had before.
We will work a lot.
Tomorrow during the warm up trying to be ok for the race”.
