MotoGP 2006 - Round Three

Australia’s Ant West produced one of his most competitive qualifying performances of 2006 to qualify on the third row of the grid for tomorrow’s 250cc Dutch Motorcycle Grand Prix at the revised and shortened Assen circuit.

West, who won the 250cc grand prix at Assen in 2003 in wet conditions, was 11th fastest in today’s second and final qualifying session with a best lap time of 1-minute 41.667-seconds on a non-factory Kiefer-BOS Racing Aprilia.

The 24-year-old said he was encouraged by the fact only 0.473-secs separated the group of nine riders from third-fastest Andrea Dovizioso on a Humangest Racing Honda back to himself in 11th. Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo won pole position for the eighth round of the 250cc world championship on a works Fortuna Aprilia.

West completed a total of 97 laps in the two practice and two qualifying sessions yesterday and today. He was 12th in yesterday’s opening qualifying session with a lap of 1-minute 42.942-seconds. West’s best qualifying lap today was an improvement of 1.275-seconds on his performance in qualifying yesterday.

The Assen circuit has been shortened to 4.5km. In previous years it was 5.9km. West finished ninth in the previous round of this year’s championship at Catalunya in Spain on June 18. He holds equal 10th position in the championship after seven rounds.

ANT WEST QUOTES: "My bike is running much better this weekend. The engine is smoother, and we have a good race set-up. After the first couple of riders there’s a big group of us close together in (qualifying) lap times. Hopefully I can get away with some of the factory bikes at the start and hang on as long as I can. I’ve won here in the wet before, and if it rains tomorrow anything can happen. There was a bit of rain around for the first practice yesterday and I ended up third (fastest). We changed the gearbox overnight and spent most of today’s sessions trying to go faster and do consistent lap times.

“The track is shorter than it used to be. There’s now a really slow left-hand corner in the new section. It’s first gear and one of the slowest corners in the championship. It almost feels like you’re going to stop. On the main straight you only get up to fifth gear now. The changes they’ve made are okay, but I liked the track better the way it used to be. But if it rains tomorrow and I can get on the podium I’ll probably think the new track is better!”