Valentino Rossi – Position: 5th Time: 1’57.059 Laps: 23
“I’m okay and I haven’t made any of my injuries worse, so this is the most important thing. I was pushing hard and trying to make my best flying lap and I just lost the front, so maybe we’re still missing a bit of grip. I was really angry when I crashed because I think it was possible to get second or even the pole position! Apart from the mistake though I’m very happy because I feel confident on the bike and I enjoyed riding today; I think for tomorrow I can be competitive. Warm-up is going to be important because we need to try to slightly improve my feeling with the front. We also need to wait to see what the weather does!”
Wilco Zeelenberg – Team Manager
“We’ve had better qualifying sessions but it’s not too bad, this track always changes a lot after it rains and we just need to adjust things a bit more. At the beginning Jorge was looking okay and his speed was good but he didn’t feel the same as he’d felt yesterday with the bike; he had less grip in the front and we made some adjustments but things weren’t perfect. The crash was unlucky; he lost the front although it wasn’t totally clear what happened. Anyway he is okay so we’re not worried and now we will try to improve his confidence in the front tomorrow.”
Davide Brivio – Team Manager
“It was a good session until the crash! It’s a pity because he was fast and he was going to improve his time and now we’re only in fifth. But we’ve worked well and our setting is at a good level – we have room for some small improvements before the race but we feel like we’re in good shape and Valentino didn’t hurt himself, so we’re looking forward to racing.”
Super Spies storms to maiden front row start in Brno
Ben Spies stormed to his maiden MotoGP front row start in Brno today, the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team rider coming within seconds of claiming a stunning pole position at the end of a dramatic qualifying session.
The Texan needed less than a quarter of the session to establish himself in the top six as he continued to make significant progress with the set-up of his YZR-M1 machine in preparation for tomorrow’s 22-lap race.
Spies began to demonstrate his fast pace shortly after the halfway stage when he moved into fourth position. His challenge for a landmark career first pole position began to gather serious momentum though when he surged into second place with a lap of 1.57.166 that put him just 0.005s behind Spaniard Dani Pedrosa.
He first moved to the top of the timesheets with 16 minutes remaining, an impressive lap of 1.57.140 on the softer compound Bridgestone rear tyre moving him 0.021s clear of the field.
The reigning World Superbike champion though wasn’t finished and he produced another blistering lap in the final five minutes of 1.56.846 to put him back ahead of Pedrosa by a margin of just 0.013s.
But with a remarkable first pole position beckoning, Pedrosa produced a decisive late attack, the triple world champion clocking a best of 1.56.508 with just 40 seconds remaining to drop Spies into second spot.
Spies though was thrilled after securing his first front row start and is brimming with confidence that he can mount a serious challenge for a second pod ium finish in what has so far been a fantastic first full season in MotoGP for the 26-year-old.
Fellow American Colin Edwards also had something to cheer this afternoon as he enjoyed his second best qualifying session of the campaign.
The experienced Texan had joined Spies in the top three earlier in the session as he lapped comfortably in the low 1.58 bracket in full race trim.
Profiting from the improved turning performance created by a revised front-end geometry setting, Edwards looked destined to secure a place on the second row for only the second time in 2010.
But despite his best efforts, he was unable to utilise the performance of his final two soft compound rear Bridgestone tyres and had to settle for seventh place. His best time of 1.57.222 was just 0.105s away from the second row and Edwards is confident he can score h is first ever top six finish at Brno tomorrow.
