Bad weather hampered today’s intense day of work at the official IRTA test session at Jerez in southern Spain. Rain in the morning led to the afternoon’s qualifying session to be conducted in difficult conditions, with the Tarmac getting drier as the 40-minutes session went on. In such conditions it wasn’t easy to find the optimum setting for the Honda RC212V, but it did allow Andrea Dovizioso to show how strong he is in such difficult conditions. For the team it was a good occasion for them to acquire that experience for the coming season in wet and changeable weather conditions. Andrea finished the day in fifth place and was the second Italian in the rankings. Today’s 40-minute qualifying event of the day at the 2.748-mile Jerez circuit historically has a prize of an important prestigious sportscar for the winner, which was won by Australian Casey Stoner.

Gianluca Montiron – Team Director
“All the rookies in MotoGP have found conditions difficult in this real qualifying session! Andrea and the team only had yesterday to find the final setting of the technical package given to us by HRC. The fifth-best time in this qualifying session makes us think positive things for the final day tomorrow because if the weather is better we will enjoy another important day of testing, which is crucial for the first race of the year which is now very close”.

Andrea Dovizioso
“After a morning of intense rain which – in any case allowed me to be third on wets – the qualifying session was held in different conditions, with the track damp and the level of grip changing with every lap. Close to the end of the session, when the situation was more stable, the Tarmac was close to dry and there was another good tyre to try and test, but the session was nearly over and I didn’t have the chance to use it. The fifth-best time in qualifying is not too bad, I’m satisfied, it’s only if I look at the gap at the four in front, that we can see we need to improve. We do have a technical package that allows us to do better than this and this is what we’re going to do! We will have another important day tomorrow hoping for good weather, and if we get it, we can achieve more significant improvements, get more information and do a lot of work”.

Pietro Caprara – Crew chief
“Despite the rain the balance of the day is overall very positive! In wet conditions we could have the third fastest time, which was half a second from the leader and this is satisfying.  During qualifying the grip was changing and on-track there were areas completely dry and others were damp and obviously the strategy was very hard to work out and it’s difficult in those conditions. When we were in a good position to use a tyre that would allow us to do better, the 40 minutes of qualifying were very close to the end and it was too bad for us that we couldn’t use it! Tomorrow is very important, but as regards the weather we shall see!”

MotoGP Jerez BMW Award
1° Casey Stoner        Ducati 1’49”263
2° Valentino Rossi    Yamaha 1’50”580
3° Nicky Hayden      Honda 1’50”785
4° Anthony West      Kawasaki 1’50”799
5° Andrea Dovizioso     Honda 1’51”312