2010 MotoGP Championship – Round 11 – Indianapolis – Day Two
MotoGP QP |
1. Ben Spies (USA) Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1’40.105 2. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1’40.325 3. Nicky Hayden (USA) Ducati Marlboro Team 1’40.336 4. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) Repsol Honda Team 1’40.559 5. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda Team 1’40.637 6. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro Team 1’40.664 7. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1’41.005 8. Marco Simoncelli (ITA) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1’41.092 9. Colin Edwards (USA) Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1’41.232 10. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1’41.512 11. Alvaro Bautista (SPA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1’41.534 12. Marco Melandri (ITA) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1’41.623 13. Hiroshi Aoyama (JPN) Interwetten-Honda MotoGP 1’41.631 14. Aleix Espargaro (SPA) Pramac Green Team 1’41.649 15. Mika Kallio (FIN) Pramac Green Team 1’41.856 16. Hector Barbera (SPA) Aspar Team 1’41.896 17. Randy de Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1’41.923 |
— Yamaha Report
Jorge Lorenzo took his eleventh straight front row of the season in Indianapolis today to extend his spotless 2010 qualifying record, but it was a difficult day for his Fiat Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi as the World Champion slid out in the closing minutes of the session and will start from seventh.
Another hot day in Indiana brought about tricky conditions on the bumpy asphalt this afternoon, with surface temperatures in excess of 50 degrees during the session. Despite the hindrance Lorenzo looked in fine fettle and as the minutes ticked down he abandoned race set-up to concentrate on qualifying times, being rewarded soon after with provisional pole. However Tech 3 Yamaha rider Ben Spies had other ideas today and the Texan edged Lorenzo into second by two tenths. The Championship Leader will be sandwiched between two Americans when the lights go out tomorrow after Nicky Hayden qualified third.
Rossi suffered a torrid day on track, unable to find a comfortable set-up and hitting the gravel in this morning’s free practice session, in which he finished ninth. Some major set-up changes before qualifying left him and the team hopeful of improvement this afternoon and his race pace was considerably better, although he still lacked some grip. Inside the final minutes and with a softer Bridgestone tyre fitted he was ready to push for a fast time but he lost the front when he hit a bump on the track and slid out for the second time today, with not enough time left in the session to go out again on his second bike. The Italian was relieved to discover he was not further down than seventh and he is looking to try to charge through the field tomorrow when the lights go out at 1500 local time.
Lorenzo – Position: 2nd Time: 1’40.325 Laps: 28
“This was a really difficult session because it was so hot and the track was very slippery and bumpy, it was hard to know what to expect! Luckily we managed a good lap and I’m happy with second place, Ben’s lap was amazing so well done to him. A good start will be really important tomorrow because there are many fast riders behind and I think it will be a tough battle for everyone. Our setting is good and we are happy with the choice for the tyre so we will try our best and see what we can do here in Indy.”
Rossi – Position: 7th Time: 1’41.005 Laps: 23
“We worked hard today to try to recover the feeling we’ve lost and we have made some improvement. Unfortunately I crashed at the worst point in the session, with the soft tyre in and doing some fast laps but with not enough time left to try again. It could have been worse because I thought I would end up much further back than seventh, so we can be happy for this. This track is very bumpy and I really think something needs to be done to some parts of it to improve it. I don’t know when the last time I crashed twice on one day is but for sure it was many years ago, back in the 90s perhaps! Luckily I am okay, nothing is hurt and this is the most important thing. I think tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day because me, Pedrosa and Stoner are all behind the front row which is unusual. It could be fun!”
Zeelenberg – Team Manager
“The conditions were really bad today with the heat and the grip levels so it was easy for the riders to be caught out. Luckily Jorge kept his head and we have a good result, as well as a good feeling with both our bikes. We know which Bridgestone tyre we’re going to use and we are starting from the front row so we’re ready for a fight. Well done to Ben Spies for this pole position, he did an amazing lap at his home race.”
Brivio – Team Manager
“We are not having the best weekend but we made some improvements today and our race pace is not too bad. Unfortunately Valentino crashed at the end of qualifying and there wasn’t time for him to go out on the second bike, but considering this then the third row isn’t too bad and luckily he hasn’t hurt himself in any way. We have some work to do tonight and we will focus on tomorrow, anything can happen and we’re looking forward to it.”
— Ducati Report
Nicky Hayden will start a MotoGP race from the front row of the grid for the first time in Ducati Team colours tomorrow after a sensational qualifying performance at Indianapolis. The American rider’s fastest ever lap of his home circuit moved him into provisional pole position with just a few minutes remaining of this afternoon’s session but he was nudged out to third place by late efforts from his compatriot Ben Spies and series leader Jorge Lorenzo.
Casey Stoner will start from directly behind his team-mate after qualifying sixth fastest. The Australian found a good pace on race tyres but did not experience the same leap in quality as Hayden when switching to a softer tyre, so despite being amongst the pacesetters all weekend he lines up on the second row.
NICKY HAYDEN (Ducati Team) 3rd (1’40.336): “I finally got my first front row with Ducati – it only took a year and a half! We’re really happy for it though especially because it’s so important for tomorrow’s race. If I want to be running up front tomorrow I have to be there from the start and I told Juan [Martinez – Nicky’s crew chief] before the session that we were due a front row and today was the day to get it. We found a decent setting on race tyres and when we put the soft compound in the jump was so big it felt like the kind of qualifying tyres we used to have. To have two American’s on the front row is great for MotoGP in this country and for everybody who supports it over here. Hopefully it brings out a big crowd tomorrow and we’ll do our best to put on a good show.”
CASEY STONER (Ducati Team) 6th (1’40.664): “I’m not very happy with this afternoon’s qualifying session, we expected to be a little faster. During the session we struggled to find the grip with the hard tyre so we spent a lot of time trying to fix it and unfortunately we tried a couple of different things and then when we switched immediately to soft tyres we had trouble with the setting and we didn’t have a lot of feeling. I’m a little disappointed for sure but I think we can expect a little bit better race pace, so I’m confident enough for tomorrow. I think we should have a bit better race pace than some of the riders in front of us today.”
— HRC
Repsol Honda Team riders Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa steered clear of trouble in an incident packed MotoGP qualifying session today and will start tomorrow’s Indianapolis Grand Prix from the front of the second row. As temperatures soared into the thirties and many riders came unstuck on the bumpy surface in today’s two sessions, the factory Honda pair established a good race pace and looked on course to contest the front row grid positions. Indeed Pedrosa held top spot for the bulk of the hour-long qualifying period – but in the final moments neither Repsol Honda rider was quite able to extract the maximum performance from the softer option Bridgestones, and so in the end settled for fourth and fifth places on the grid.
Dovizioso had been on promising form in the morning practice session, held in conditions that were 15 degrees cooler than this afternoon, and finished in third place only 0.1s from top spot. In the afternoon, the 24-year-old Italian upped the pace further and went to the top of the timesheets with fifteen minutes to go with a lap time of 1m 40.559s. It proved to be his fastest time and Dovizioso will head the second row when the lights go out to start tomorrow’s 28-lap race. With a good start, he is confident of his chances.
Pedrosa was also quick in the morning session, finishing in second place just 0.058s behind Casey Stoner at the head of the field. A repeat of Pedrosa’s Indy pole position from last year looked distinctly on the cards as Pedrosa took top spot early in qualifying and displayed impressive pace on the hard option Bridgestone tyres. He too was unable to improve on his final runs on softer rubber but, with the high temperatures encountered at Indianapolis so far this weekend expected to continue, Pedrosa also looks in a strong position ahead of round 11 of the MotoGP World Championship, which begins at 15.00 local time tomorrow (GMT – 4 hours).
ANDREA DOVIZIOSO – 4th – 1m 40.559s +0.454s
“I’m satisfied with the front of the second row, especially because our race pace is fast – so I’m confident for tomorrow. It will be important to make a good start. I think it will be a tight group going into the first turns, and Spies and Nicky will be very determined in front of their home fans, but actually the fastest person in terms of race pace is Dani. He has a margin of two or three tenths compared to us so it will be a tough race because there isn’t much grip and you need to ride smoothly to exploit what grip there is – this can be difficult to do in a race situation. The team did a good job today, we improved the stability at the front a lot and we made a big improvement with the electronic set-up – especially with the traction control. I think the tyre choice will have to be the hard compound, and this means we look in pretty good shape for the race.”
DANI PEDROSA – 5th – 1m 40.637s +0.532s
“We improved our times quite a lot from yesterday and made some good progress with the machine set-up and race pace. In the final moments of qualifying though we couldn’t go any faster on the softer tyre and so we have to settle for the second row – which isn’t perfect – but still I think we can make a good start and compete at the front tomorrow. With these high track temperatures it looks like the harder option tyre will be the one to go with and we have a decent pace on this tyre, although I don’t know if all the riders will make the same choice. Tomorrow it will be a very tough race physically, and also for the tyres because it will be very difficult to control the tyre temperature in the race. I’m sure the American riders will be very strong, and also the riders who are normally at the front, so here maybe we will have more rivals to consider. Still, my feeling with the hard Bridgestone is good so I think we can do a good race tomorrow.”
TOSHIYUKI YAMAJI – REPSOL HONDA TEAM MANAGER
“Today we have qualified on the second row which gives both Repsol Honda riders the chance to get away at the front of the race – this is positive. Of course we would have preferred the front row and I think both Andrea and Dani had the chance for that today – but we struggled to improve as much as our rivals on the softer options Bridgestone tyres at the end of the session. We will look into the reasons for this, but still, Andrea and Dani both have a good race pace on the harder compound and, considering the high track temperatures we have experienced so far this weekend, the harder option looks like the one for the race. So the Repsol Honda Team is in reasonable shape and we’ll work hard for the best result tomorrow.”
— Suzuki Report
Rizla Suzuki racers Loris Capirossi and Álvaro Bautista will start tomorrow’s Indianapolis Grand Prix alongside each other on the fourth row of the grid.
Capirossi (P10, 1’41.512, 25 laps) will begin tomorrow’s 28 lap race from the front of row four, with team-mate Bautista (P11, 1’4.534, 29 laps) next to him. The pair both made steps to improve their respective Suzuki GSV-Rs around the 4,216m American circuit and they are confident that these measures will help them in tomorrow’s race. Capirossi is still looking to unlock some more of the potential of his GSV-R and will probably make a couple of changes in tomorrow’s warm-up ahead of the race, whilst Bautista made big advances with learning the circuit on a MotoGP machine and is confident that he can improve even more during the race.
Today’s qualifying was held in warm and sunny conditions with track temperatures again over 50ºC. Ben Spies took his first ever MotoGP pole position, as he rode his satellite Yamaha to the front of the grid ahead of World Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo in second.
Tomorrow’s event is the 11th race of the season and the action gets underway at 15.00hrs local time (19.00hrs GMT).
Loris Capirossi: “We saw a little bit more promise in the qualifying; it was like the sun started to shine on us. We had struggled a bit in practice and we tried to fix things and improve the feeling and it seemed like we have started to do that. We are still struggling a bit with front feeling, but the whole team has worked really hard to fix this and we are pretty close to a solution now. My bike is not very good on top-speed here and we don’t know why, we have compared the data from last year and we are a bit slower so we will have to try and do something about that. I am quite happy with this afternoon because we improved a lot from this morning and yesterday. The rhythm we have is not too bad and if we can do the same in the race I think we should be ok. I am positive for the race and will start will full throttle – I’m just going to go for it.”
Álvaro Bautista: “We had a good qualifying and I was able to follow a pack that included Rossi, Dovizioso and Pedrosa and I didn’t lose too much time to them on every lap, so that was good for me as I needed to get an idea of how I was doing in comparison to other riders around here. After that I tried to push myself a bit more, but I still had a bit of a problem with rear grip and it made things a bit hard. We made some small changes to the bike and improved things quite a bit. At the end I tried to follow someone to get more reference points because they are so important here, but there was nobody to follow so I had to work alone and set my times by myself. I think our set-up for the race is not too bad and if I get a good start tomorrow and get into the group in front I can stay with them.”
Stuart Shenton – Loris Capirossi’s Crew Chief: “It was not a bad qualifying, especially considering we had a couple of issues in the two practice sessions. Loris was a lot happier with the bike this afternoon, but it does seem to be tough for us to get in the top-10 in qualifying and we’ve just managed to scrape in there today. We still might make a couple of little changes in the warm-up tomorrow and then we’ll be looking for Loris to get a good start and see if he can move a couple of places forward and be battling well inside the top-10.”
— Bridgestone Report
Spies secures first MotoGP pole position; race tyre choice undecided
Bridgestone slick compounds available: Front: Medium, Hard. Rear: Hard, Extra Hard (asymmetric)
Ben Spies scored his career first MotoGP pole, and his first on Bridgestone tyres, with a stunning lap in the closing stages of the hour-long qualifying session for the Indianapolis Grand Prix. The American Monster Yamaha Tech3 rider topped the order by 0.2seconds, the only rider to lap under the existing Indy lap record, using Bridgestone’s harder front and softer asymmetric rear slick tyres.
Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo will start second for Fiat Yamaha, just 0.01seconds ahead of the second American on the front row, Ducati Team’s Nicky Hayden who also recorded his best qualifying performance of the season and indeed his best qualifying result since moving to Bridgestone tyres at the start of the 2009 season.
Every rider set his fastest qualifying lap using the harder front and softer rear slick tyres, but today all riders continued to assess both tyre compound options in order to make their choice for the race tomorrow. The track temperature reached a scorching 52 degrees Celsius today, and the forecast for tomorrow is hotter still. The softer option rear tyres delivered the fastest times in qualifying because of the additional grip they offer, but with the high track temperature the harder option rears will offer better consistency over race distance, so many riders are still undecided and will use tomorrow’s warm-up session to confirm their race choice.
Tohru Ubukata – Manager, Bridgestone Motorcycle Tyre Development Department
“Firstly I want to congratulate Ben and the Monster Yamaha Tech3 team for his first MotoGP pole position in only his rookie season, and also to Nicky and Ducati for his best qualifying performance on Bridgestone tyres. The softer rear tyre provided a grip advantage over the harder option during the qualifying session, even with such a high track temperature, but the harder rear will certainly have more consistency over race distance tomorrow.
“Conditions will be tough for riders and tyres in the race, but I think that the primary choice will be the softer option rear because of the grip advantage it provides and the extra confidence the riders have in this, even if race distance consistency is not as good as the harder option rear slick. I think there will be a mix between those riders who want the extra grip and those who choose to have better consistency over the 28 laps, so the race could provide an interesting comparison of the performance of both rear tyre compound options.”