Valentino Rossi Ducati – MotoGP 2012

World Champion Jorge Lorenzo secured his seventeenth front-row start of the season in Valencia this afternoon, qualifying second behind Casey Stoner for the eighteenth and final round of the season. His Fiat Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi has struggled in all four sessions but the nine-time champion made a drastic improvement in the final stages of the session to qualify fourth for his final Yamaha appearance tomorrow.

Lorenzo, wearing a one-off crystal-encrusted helmet for his home race, was third in this morning’s practice session and then spent the first half of qualifying second in the standings as he made some final set-up tweaks to his M1. Half-way through he moved into first and then put in a run of stunningly consistent fast laps, improving his time several times over. Stoner was even quicker today though and with six minutes left on the clock the Australian moved ahead of the Mallorcan and, despite Lorenzo pulling out all the stops in the final moments, pole was not to be today and he finished 0.331 seconds off Stoner in second. Lorenzo is nonetheless the season’s best qualifier and will receive his prize of a new car this afternoon to add to his tally of plaudits from the year.

After yesterday’s difficulties a major set-up change this morning did little for Rossi’s feeling on the bike and the Italian was 10th in free practice. The early part of qualifying yielded no improvement and with five minutes to go he was still outside the top ten. A final alteration however left him feeling more confident on the bike and on his final lap the front row looked a not inconceivable target, as he was on course for second at the third split before dropping a couple of tenths in the final sector and coming home in fourth, 0.086 seconds off Marco Simoncelli.

Jorge Lorenzo – Position: 2nd Time: 1’32.130 Laps: 18
“I’m really excited and proud to be on the front row in front of the Spanish crowd, at this home race. Especially racing here; the last race is always special and everyone wants to do well. I tried my best to make the pole position today but Casey was really very quick today, I couldn’t beat him. Let’s see if we can keep in contact with him tomorrow in the race, if we can stay with him we can challenge. We will try the maximum as always. X-Lite has honoured me with this special helmet and I am so proud of it, it looks like diamonds in the sunshine! Thanks to everyone and I hope to make a good race in it tomorrow.”

Colin Edwards – Postiton 7th Time: 1’32.579 Laps: 23
“I’ve felt good all weekend with this new setting and I want to thank my guys at Monster Yamaha Tech 3 because as always they’ve done an awesome job. The changes we have made have really helped my confidence with the rear of the bike. I can turn much better, I don’t run wide and the new setting seems to give me better rear grip but is also good for tyre life too. I was comfortable on the hard tyre bu t I hadn’t used the soft tyre since yesterday morning, so I didn’t really know the potential of it. On the first tyre I was almost a second quicker, put the second tyre in and it didn’t give the same confidence for some reason. On the last one I felt better and I’m happy with the lap time but it is so tight at the top that just a couple of tenths costs you a lot of places. Seventh is not where I want to be but everybody is going fast. I think anybody from third to ninth will be thinking they can get on the podium and I’m one of them. We’ve seen though on this track that the field can spread out pretty quick and if it does I hope to be at the sharp end.”

Valentino Rossi took a stunning win in Jerez today, his first of the season and the 98th of his career taking him 11 points clear at the top of the championship. His Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo had a disappointing home race, crashing out on lap 24 when closing on the final podium position.

The reigning World Champion had looked in trouble yesterday but an overnight set-up change saw him fastest in warm-up and he lined up confident that he would be able to mount a challenge. Starting from fourth on the grid, Rossi held his position at the start and managed to pass Lorenzo on the final turn of the second lap. Casey Stoner was the next target and the Italian quickly began to close the gap, setting the fastest lap of the race on lap four. Rossi and Stoner exchanged a couple of entertaining passes in the next few laps before the Yamaha rider made it stick at the end of the seventh lap, with the gap to Dani Pedrosa in the lead then standing at 1.2 seconds. The middle section of the race saw Rossi making little headway into the Spaniard’s lead but at two-thirds distance he suddenly found a new rhythm and started shaving tenths off the gap, making the definitive move and claiming the lead with 10 laps to go. From then on there was only one winner and the irrepressible 30-year-old brought his M1 home 2.7 seconds clear of second-placed Pedrosa. Ever the joker, Rossi took advantage of the moment to replicate one of his most famous post-race stunts ten years on, making a stop on his victory lap to pop into a track side portable toilet, to the delight of the 120,000-strong crowd.

After his dazzling pole position Lorenzo was fully expecting to challenge for the win but the higher track temperature today caused problems and he lacked the grip and pace of yesterday. The Mallorcan, who turns 22 tomorrow, spent most of the race in a lonely fourth position but in the final stages began to close on Stoner and looked like he might have a podium chance. With the gap down to under half a second the excitement began to build in the 99 side of the garage but with just four laps to go he lost the front and went down, emerging unhurt from the gravel trap but with damage to his foot peg and throttle meaning there was no chance to finish the race.

Rossi now leads Stoner by 11 points in the standings, whilst Lorenzo slips to third, 13 points adrift of the Australian. The MotoGP paddock will reconvene on French soil in ten days time for round four in Le Mans.

Valentino Rossi – Position: 1st Time: 45’18.557
“This is a wonderful victory because yesterday we were really quite worried! I couldn’t ride how I wanted to and it was very hard. We had to work all together to understand how to fix the problem and finally we made a big change to try to make the bike feel how I like in the corner, which worked, so I have to say a huge thank you to Jeremy and all my guys. This morning we could tell immediately that things were much better and then we made a couple more small changes after warm-up, which made my M1 and my Bridgestone tyres feel even better. The race was long and quite hard – I lost some time getting past Lorenzo at the start and then I had a good battle with Stoner, which I enjoyed. After that I wasn’t so fast and I couldn’t close the gap to Pedrosa for a while; he was very quick but finally things improved and I was able to catch and pass him. It’s great to win again and especially here in Jerez, which I love. It’s ten years since I made the joke with the toilet here and so I thought it would be funny to do it again if I won – I liked that a lot! Now I hope that the changes we’ve made here will help us for the rest of the season. Thanks again to everyone!”

James Toseland – Position: 13th Time: +0’53.683
“It has been a tough weekend and we have got some issues to sort out. We’re still trying a few things on the bike and I’m still searching for a comfortable setting over a race distance. I still need a second or so on race pace but I need to sort out qualifying too. I can do the same times as four or five guys in front of me, but when you’re all lapping at the same pace, it’s hard to come through. I’m giving myself too much to do from qualifying and being too far back. You don’t need to be too far off but if you start at the back you stay at the back in a competitive class like this. It has not been a great start to the season but I don’t feel we’re that far away. We’ve got a lot of information from this weekend and we’re eliminating things that we know don’t work. I’m confident we’re close to finding the setting I need and working hard with my guys to find it.”

Herve Poncharal – Team Manager
“It was a difficult race and in the first two races I have to say we were a little bit closer to the front. It’s a shame that Colin wasn’t quite comfortable enough with the setting to fight closer with (Loris) Capirossi and (Marco) Melandri at the end. A top six would have been well deserved for his hard effort and maybe fifth was achievable. It was also a tough weekend for James. His lap times in the race were not too bad but it is clear he must improve in qualifying. He is capable of a much stronger performance, but it is difficult when you don’t qualify well. The start of the race now is crucial and qualifying is something that he will work on with his team. Everybody at Tech 3 is now looking forward to our home race. We know Le Mans is very good circuit for Yamaha and last year Colin was on the podium behind Jorge (Lorenzo) and Valentino (Rossi). I’d also like to thank Mark Hall from Monster Energy for his support this weekend. The Yamaha Tech 3 team is delighted to have Monster Energy as our title sponsor, and I’m sure our partnership will bring success in the future.”