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Weather at the Sachsenring for MotoGP’s qualifying was rainy to put it mildly. As such, the water soaked track feasted upon the unsuspecting riders as they left pit-lane wearing full sets of rains. In total, six riders touched the asphalt with more than a knee puck or elbow, with Turn 6 responsible for the majority of that action.
MotoGP this season has been plauged with changing conidtions on race weekends, and Germany will be no different. With Saturday’s rain, comes Sunday’s sunshine (or at least more sunshine than Saturday’s). This will likely cause a bobble in the qualifying order, which has already seen some surprise this weekend. Continue reading to find out all about it.
It looks like both Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner will race tomorrow in the US GP at Laguna Seca. After both riders suffered high-sides during today’s qualifying sessions, they have made announcements that they intend to race, but will ride injured.
It was a close qualify session in the outskirts of Barcelona today, but at the end of the day Jorge Lorenzo pulled a squeaker of a session on Valentino Rossi to take the pole in front of his home crowd.
Wearing special livery for the day, which paid homage to Barcelona FC (the local soccer team), Lorenzo lapped a 1’41.974 on the Catalan track, just .013 seconds quicker than Rossi’s best effort. This news surely pleased Team Fiat-Yamaha, as once again they’ll have a 1-2 start on the grid for tomorrow’s race.
Dani Pedrosa took his first pole position of 2009 season at this Saturday afternoon’s MotoGP qualifying session for the French GP. The Repsol Honda rider stole the pole position away from Jorge Lorenzo by five thousanth of second, all in the last 10 seconds of the qualifying session. Casey Stoner was third, fourth was Valentino Rossi, just in front of Andrea Dovizioso…all five of these riders were within three tenths of second of each other.
At Monza this week, Pirelli will be debuting a new qualifying tire solution for the World Superbike Championship. Taking a page from what the 200mm qualifying tire will include markers that will help indicate what tires are being selected during the Superpole competition. Pirelli tires will sport non-permanent white “long P” markings and yellow lines, which have been imprinted on to the tire’s surface. These markings will offer spectators and presenters a way of identifying what is happening during the Superpole in regards to tire choices.
It took Jorge Lorenzo just 1’38.933 to lap around the circuit at Jerez, and put himself at the front of the grid on Sunday for the MotoGP Spanish Gran Prix. The Spainard didn’t disappoint his home crowd, as he staved off the other local favorite, Dani Pedrosa.
The two riders have been in top form all week, and Pedrosa again demonstrated his improving form and fitness on the Repsol Honda RC212V , lapping just 0.051 seconds behind Lorenzo to take the second place spot on the starting line tomorrow. Completing out the front row is Casey Stoner, who was half a second behind Lorenzo at what he describes as his least favorite track.
Heavy lunchtime rain at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit led to the cancellation of all qualifying sessions for the Polini Grand Prix of Japan, leaving grid positions in all three World Championship categories to be decided according to Free Practice positions. Initially, the decision was to wait for an hour, and then assess if the weather conditions would improve enough for qualifying to be run later in the day. However with the rain being unrelenting, there was nothing left for Race Direction to do but to cancel the qualifying sessions for all three classes. As such, Valentino Rossi will start at the Japanese GP’s pole position for the first time in his career.
The unluckiest man of the weekend has by far been Nicky Hayden. In the first Free Practice, he suffered a clutch problem, followed by an electrical problem, which cost him testing time in the session and forced him to use his backup bike. The next day in the second Free Practice, Hayden had an engine blow up on his Desmosedici, forcing him one again onto his backup bike. Lastly in the Qualifying Session, Nicky Hayden took a huge highside just a few minutes from the end of the session, and now his participation in the season opener at Qatar is questionable.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that’s been visiting A&R for the past few days when you read that Casey Stoner has won the pole position for the Qatar GP tomorrow. The Australian has been dominating the week and holds nearly half a second over second place rider, Valentino Rossi, who with Stoner, Lorenzo, and Dovizioso are the only riders to break into the 1:55’s this week.
Ben Spies sits on top of the leader board at today’s qualifying at Phillip Island, and is the first winner of World Superbike’s new Superpole system. Quashing any comments from naysayers who still harbored considerable doubts about Yamaha’s recruit from the AMA, Spies showed that he is the real deal in WSBK and could be one of the riders to watch in the series. Tomorrow, he gets two chances to show what he can do it in the race. Max Biaggi follows the American rookie with a strong showing for Aprilia’s WSBK comeback, which has on exactly how similar it is to the production version of the RSV4. Continue reading for times from qualifying.