MotoGP 2006 - Round Three

Camel Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi will start from the front row of the grid for the first time this season in tomorrow’s Grand Prix of Italy after the home hero set the third quickest time in today’s single qualifying practice. The session took place under a blanket of thick grey cloud, with cool ambient temperatures of 16ºC and just 18ºC on track, but the threat of rain held off and the teams and riders were afforded crucial dry track time as they adjusted their machine set-up ahead of tomorrow’s 23-lap race.

Rossi’s best lap of 1’49.167 came on his penultimate effort and was inside his previous pole record here by almost a tenth of a second. However, it wasn’t quite enough to dislodge Sete Gibernau and Loris Capirossi (both Ducati) from the top two grid spots as the Spaniard took his first pole position of the season for the Italian factory. After falling behind with set-up work due to adverse weather conditions yesterday, Rossi’s Camel Yamaha team-mate Colin Edwards was unable to make up for lost time today and he could only manage the 14th fastest time, meaning he will start from the middle of the fifth row tomorrow.

This afternoon Rossi will present a brand new R6 in unique Yamaha MotoGP colours to Marco Ponti, from Gallarate in the Varese region of Italy, who took part in a contest as part of the ‘Yamaha Open Weekend.’

VALENTINO ROSSI (3rd – 1’49.167; 26 laps)
“It is a good feeling to be back on the front row – I don’t think I’ve been there since Phillip Island last year so it is a long time and I’m glad it came here at Mugello. For sure this is one of my favourite tracks and with all my fans, family and friends here I really want to get a good result. The front row is important for this because in the past few races I have had to fight really hard at the start of the race to pass riders so hopefully I can get a better start tomorrow. We’re not on pole but Michelin and Yamaha have worked really hard to improve our performance on a qualifying tyre and this is a big step forward. Anyway my race pace is quite good so I hope to give my fans a lot of reasons for a party tomorrow night. My new helmet design is by a famous Italian cartoonist called Milo Manara. He has drawn a kind of mythical story of my life, with some of my heroes like Steve McQueen, Enzo Ferrari and Jim Morrison, with other characters like my dog Guido, Osvaldo the chicken and lots of beautiful women! I really like it and Milo is somebody I have admired for a long time.”

COLIN EDWARDS (14th – 1’50.405; 26 laps)
“I’m not too happy at all. This track seems to have a curse over me because I always seem to be unlucky here. Yesterday the weather played against us when we were trying to find some settings for the new chassis so we had to stick to the old one today and for whatever reason it hasn’t worked. We haven’t managed to work out the root of the problem yet but it seems everything that was good at China and Le Mans has evaporated here. It’s not for a lack of trying – I’m pushing really hard but maybe I’m pushing in the wrong place, I don’t know! We’ve had no time this weekend to test and use the new chassis so maybe we’re paying the price for that. All we can do is squeeze the most out of what we have in the warm-up and see how much progress I can make in terms of positions in the race.”

DAVIDE BRIVIO – CAMEL YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR
“I’m very happy for Valentino, it’s nice for him to be back on the front row. We’ve made some improvements to the performance of the bike on qualifying tyres, which is an area we have struggled with so far this season, so we are very satisfied with that. It looks as though Valentino also has confidence with the race setting and he set a good rhythm on race tyres so we hope he can put on a great show tomorrow. Unfortunately Colin was unable to get anything extra out of the qualifying tyre so he is starting from a difficult position. He isn’t comfortable with the setting of the bike so our goal is to improve this situation during the warm-up and give him a chance of producing the kind of ride he showed in the last race at Le Mans, when he fought back from a lowly position to score some good points.”