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Brno qualifying: Dani Pedrosa on front row

In MotoGP

15 agosto 2009

Brno qualifying: Dani Pedrosa on front row

Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) will start tomorrow’s Czech Grand Prix from the front row of the grid after a strong run in this afternoon’s sun-soaked qualifying session at Brno. The Spaniard was third fastest in the outing, for his fifth front-row start this year, just behind Yamaha duo Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.

Pedrosa may have been faster if he hadn’t found some traffic at the most crucial stage of the session and is convinced he will be able to fight for the win if his crew can fine tune his set-up before morning warm-up. Most of all, Pedrosa is looking for more consistency in his lap times. His RC212V is certainly performing well here, heading the top speed charts at 301.8km/h.

Compatriot Toni Elias (San Carlo Honda Gresini) put in a sterling performance to lead the second row, less than three tenths slower than Pedrosa. Elias has shown a steady and marked improvement in recent races, enough to make him confident of a good result here. Yesterday he worked hard on honing his RCV’s electronics set-up for this track, yielding excellent results which allowed him to up his pace today.

British GP winner Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) completes the second row in sixth place, having reduced the gap between himself and the leaders in the qualifying session. Most importantly the Italian has improved his race pace and is sure he can be faster in the race if a few overnight tweaks give him more performance.

Like team-mate Elias, Alex De Angelis (San Carlo Honda Gresini) has been steadily building speed in recent outings and the San Marino rider was in excellent form once again today, taking seventh place immediately behind Dovizioso. During the session De Angelis ran into some difficulties with his machine running wide through the corners, but a clever set-up adjustment in the final few minutes of the hour-long outing cured the problem.

Unlucky Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) was 13th fastest, riding in some discomfort after breaking bones in his left ankle last Saturday. The Frenchman was riding a motocross training session when he fell and sustained the injury. He had the damaged bones screwed to allow him to ride here and underwent pain-killing injections before going out to qualify. In the circumstances, 13th place, just 2.1 seconds off pole position, is a brave result.

Thousands of Hungarian fans flocked into the Brno circuit this morning to cheer on Gabor Talmacsi (Scot Honda) in his first MotoGP qualifying session in eastern Europe. The former 125 World Champion ended the day 17th, 2.6 seconds off Rossi’s pole time, working hard with his crew to find more grip to cure an understeer problem.

Current 250 World Championship leader Hiroshi Aoyama (Scot Honda) qualified a brilliant second fastest in the 250 class, even though the Japanese thought he had done enough to secure pole position. Aoyama had been fastest with a minute to go, before reigning 250 World Champion Marco Simoncelli (Gilera) bettered him by just three tenths. Nonetheless, Aoyama, who has already won three races this year, believes he can aim for another big points haul tomorrow, especially if his crew can make improvements overnight.

Young team-mate Raffaele De Rosa (Scot Honda) also impressed, claiming ninth spot on the grid, missing out on a second row start by just 0.020 seconds. De Rosa worked hard throughout practice and qualifying to improve grip and corner-entry performance.

Hector Faubel (Valencia CF-Honda SAG) is looking forward to showing his real pace in tomorrow’s race after his attempts to get a better grid position were foiled by slower riders in the final moments of qualifying. The Spaniard’s team-mate Ratthapark Wilairot (Thai Honda PTT-SAG) found a good pace after making adjustments to his engine set-up this afternoon, ending qualifying immediately behind team-mate Faubel. The Thai rider is confident he can run a good pace tomorrow.

Team-mates Shoya Tomizawa (Team CIP Honda) and Valentin Debise (Team CIP Honda) are both Brno first-timers; this extra-wide track always taking a while to learn. Tomizawa crashed this morning, losing half the session, but still managed to qualify 16th fastest. Debise was 20th despite having some difficulties with chatter. Bastien Chesaux (Racing Team Germany Honda) was 21st. The youngster was faster in this morning’s session and is now working on a set-up that will allow him to find more speed in the afternoon heat.