FIM MotoGP World Championship Estoril, Portugal October 3, 2009 Final Qualifying Results (all on Bridgestone tires): 1. Jorge LORENZO (Yamaha), 1:36.214 2. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha), 1:36.474 3. Casey STONER (Ducati), 1:36.528 4. Dani PEDROSA (Honda), 1:36.702 5. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha), 1:37.142 6. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda), 1:37.448 7. Loris CAPIROSSI (Suzuki), 1:37.489 8. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda), 1:37.541 9. Nicky HAYDEN (Ducati), 1:37.654 10. Mika KALLIO (Ducati), 1:37.813 11. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda), 1:37.822 12. James TOSELAND (Yamaha), 1:37.823 13. Toni ELIAS (Honda), 1:37.911 14. Niccolo CANEPA (Ducati), 1:38.042 15. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki), 1:38.342 16. Marco MELANDRI (Kawasaki), 1:38.538 17. Gabor TALMACSI (Honda), 1:39.320 More, from a press release issued by Fiat Yamaha: LORENZO TAKES FIFTH POLE OF SEASON AND ROSSI MAKES IT A ONE-TWO FOR FIAT YAMAHA Jorge Lorenzo took his first pole position since Laguna Seca back in June at Estoril this afternoon, the Mallorcan sealing his fifth pole of the season with a strong performance ahead of tomorrow’s Portuguese Grand Prix. His Fiat Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi meanwhile took his eleventh front row of the season and will start tomorrow’s race from second, with Casey Stoner taking the final front-row slot. Having topped both practice sessions this weekend, Lorenzo was the clear favourite for pole this afternoon and the 22-year-old looked smooth and comfortable out on track as he made a few last-minute setting changes before the fight for grid spots. With twenty minutes remaining he took the lead and didn’t surrender it for the rest of the session, improving his time several times and never looking in much danger from his rivals. Rossi had a few problems yesterday but was in better shape today, having improved the balance of his M1 in the hard braking zones. His penultimate lap was good enough to put him second although he was unable to quite match his team-mate’s pace on the softer Bridgestone tyre today. The championship leader is planning a few overnight improvements in order to ensure he is at the maximum for the race. Tomorrow’s 28-lap race gets underway at the slightly earlier time than usual of 1300 local time, which is 1400 CET. Jorge Lorenzo Position: 1st Time: 1’36.214 Laps: 29 “It’s been quite a few races since I’ve had a pole! I was getting a bit worried because doing one fast lap has always been one of my strong points but lately we haven’t been able to be quite competitive enough with the soft tyre. This weekend however everything is working really well and the setting with both tyres is great, so I was able to go out and do some very fast laps. Tomorrow is another day and we know that everyone will be strong, so we will just try and push to the limit and see what happens.” Valentino Rossi Position: 2nd Time: 1’36.474 Laps: 28 “We improved the setting a lot this afternoon from yesterday and managed to fix a lot of the problems we had in the braking, so today was not so bad. We still need more traction on the exits from the slow corners however and we are also losing some time in the tight hairpin. We are not so far but we need to study the data and find a way to improve things a bit more for the race. It will be quite a strong fight tomorrow I think and 28 laps in this heat is going to be hard, but we will be ready.” Daniele Romagnoli Team Manager “It’s very good to be back on pole position after what has been quite a long time. Jorge was today able to do some very fast laps with the softer tyre, which has allowed us to get back on pole, but he also has a good and consistent race pace and so we feel confident for the race. We still have a little work to do on some rear grip issues in order to be a bit faster in the last section of the track, so we will use tomorrow’s warm-up to do that and then we will be ready for an exciting race.” Davide Brivio Team Manager “We’ve done a good job to have improved our setting and this has allowed Valentino to be on the front row today. However we still have some work to do to make another step and get to what will probably be tomorrow’s race pace – it looks like we’re a little bit slower at the moment. Tomorrow’s warm-up will be important and we will use the time as best we can in order to be ready to fight. More, from a press release issued by Bridgestone: Portuguese pole for Lorenzo on Bridgestone’s medium compound slicks Round 14: Portugal GP Qualifying Circuito Estoril, Saturday 3 October 2009 Bridgestone slick compounds available: Front: Soft, Medium. Rear: Medium, Hard (asymmetric) Using Bridgestone’s medium compound front and rear slicks during qualifying for the Portuguese Grand Prix, Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo secured his fifth pole position start on Bridgestone tyres. Topping the timesheets for the second day running, Lorenzo’s best was almost one second faster than his time yesterday, putting the Mallorcan an impressive 1.2seconds faster than the existing circuit lap record. Fellow Fiat Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi was second ahead of Ducati Team’s Casey Stoner, Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and Colin Edwards of the Monster Yamaha Tech3 team. The best times of the top five riders were all faster than the existing lap record, further indicating the encouraging performance from the Bridgestone rubber at this traditionally tricky venue. For most of the hour-long session riders favoured the harder of the available specifications (the medium compound front and hard compound rear), which are likely to be the favoured choice for tomorrow’s race, but as usual the fastest times came at the end of qualifying using the softer option rear for its extra traction. Tohru Ubukata Manager, Bridgestone Motorcycle Tyre Development Department “I am happy with the performance of our slick tyres today because we have seen the laptimes at the front of the field get faster again. Estoril has always been a tricky circuit for us but the tyres we have developed for this year have a wider operating range than those previously. This has benefits at every circuit we have visited this year, but because of the particularly varied nature of Estoril, the improvement in overall performance is more noticeable here. “I think another key reason for the improvement in pace is the change of date of this grand prix from April back to the latter half of the season. As a result we are enjoying higher ambient and track temperatures which improves the grip of the circuit. We expected the higher temperature at this time of year, but what is unusual for this circuit is that the conditions are so stable with no cloud or wind, which can make the circuit dusty and slippery. If conditions remain the same tomorrow, the harder compound options will be favoured for the race because of the additional durability over race distance that they provide.” Top ten from qualifying (Saturday 13:55 14:55 GMT+1) Pos Rider Team Fastest lap Gap Compounds Front, Rear 1 Jorge Lorenzo Fiat Yamaha Team 1m36.214s Medium, Medium 2 Valentino Rossi Fiat Yamaha Team 1m36.474s +0.260s Medium, Medium 3 Casey Stoner Ducati Team 1m36.528s +0.314s Medium, Medium 4 Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda Team 1m36.702s +0.488s Medium, Medium 5 Colin Edwards Monster Yamaha Tech3 1m37.142s +0.928s Medium, Medium 6 Randy de Puniet LCR Honda MotoGP 1m37.448s +1.234s Medium, Medium 7 Loris Capirossi Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m37.489s +1.275s Medium, Medium 8 Andrea Dovizioso Repsol Honda Team 1m37.541s +1.327s Medium, Medium 9 Nicky Hayden Ducati Team 1m37.654s +1.440s Medium, Medium 10 Mika Kallio Pramac Racing 1m37.813s +1.599s Medium, Medium Weather: Dry. Ambient 24°C; Track 45-42°C ( Bridgestone measurement) More, from a press release issued by Rizla Suzuki: Estoril enhancements encourage Capirossi Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi qualified for tomorrow’s Estoril Grand Prix on the front of the third row after a promising session in Portugal today. Capirossi (P7, 1’37.489, 30 laps) was pleased with the progress that his latest incarnation of the Suzuki GSV-R made during today’s session, as he continued to make improvements. Capirossi was determined to test his bike to the full during this afternoon’s hour-long qualifying session, recording more laps of the 4,182m Estoril circuit than any other rider. He is confident of a good race tomorrow and is sure that the advances made with the new bike will enable him to challenge for a competitive finish tomorrow. Seventh place on the grid signals Capirossi’s best grid position for seven races – since he qualified in sixth at Assen in June. Chris Vermeulen (P15, 38.342, 29 laps) was still suffering with his back injury today, but he wasn’t hampered by it too much as he completed 29 laps during this afternoon’s qualifying. Vermeulen was pleased with the improvements that were made to his bike, but disappointed to be back on the fifth row of the grid. He will be pushing as hard as he can from the start tomorrow to reconcile that grid position as he aims to score valuable championship points. Today’s qualifying was held in warm and sunny conditions with a gentle breeze keeping temperatures at a pleasant 25ºC. Jorge Lorenzo took his fifth pole position of the season on his factory Yamaha, with team-mate and World Championship leader Valentino Rossi in second place on the grid. Tomorrow’s 28-lap race is the 14th event on this season’s calendar and it will get going at 13.00hrs local time (12.00hrs GMT). Loris Capirossi: “Overall it’s been ok for us today, we made some improvements this morning and tried to continue with that this afternoon. We changed a few things on the bike and the whole team worked well to make things better for me. We have got a bit of vibration from the front and we need to resolve that, but other than that we are quite competitive. I want to say thank-you to Suzuki, because normally this is one of the worst tracks for us and we have improved a lot on the rear grip – which was a big problem in the past – and the new package we have is much better. We have improved on top speed as well, we are now quite competitive and for us this is great and a very important step forward.” Chris Vermeulen: “We made some good changes to the bike today and consistently improved on the lap-time. We ran both the compounds of tyres on the front and rear this afternoon and we’ve got a reasonable race set-up. I’m a bit disappointed in actual performance because I just couldn’t quite get the lap-time I wanted, but I was able to achieve the one I did quite easily so we should be able to run at that pace all race. Hopefully I’ll get a good start and make up a few places early on and have a good race.” Paul Denning – Team Manager: “We hoped yesterday that overnight changes would see both of the guys find a reasonable amount of lap-time and we’ve managed to achieve that. Chris has never been ‘Captain Qualifier’ and today was a disappointing result, which without any question he will improve upon tomorrow. With Loris we still haven’t got the optimum set-up for the new GSV-R and we’re struggling a bit with consistency as we go from track to track, but he showed a lot of determination to pull out a good lap at the end of the session. It was a bit ragged and you definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be sitting on the back, but now we have achieved more outright speed we hope we can smooth some things out tomorrow morning in warm-up and then have a decent Grand Prix in the afternoon.” More, from a press release issued by Monster Yamaha Tech 3: Edwards impresses in Estoril qualifying, Toseland battles to 12th Colin Edwards continued his brilliant qualifying form at the Estoril circuit this afternoon, the Texan riding his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 machine to fifth position on the grid in preparation for the 28-lap Portuguese MotoGP. A fastest lap of 1.37.142 ensured Edwards claimed his 10th second row start of 2009 to strengthen the American’s bid for fifth place overall in the world championship standings. In temperatures that again hit the mid-twenties, Edwards concentrated his efforts on finding a balance between stability and turning with the front-end of his YZR-M1 machine. Edwards was as high as fourth place at one stage and the 35-year-old finished leading non-factory rider again on the timesheets, an achievement he has managed with remarkable consistency this season. James Toseland, who is still firmly in the hunt for a top seven world championship finish, will start from 12th position on the grid. The British rider worked on geometry and wheelbase changes to improve grip levels with his YZR-M1 and he was under 0.2s away from a top ten finish in another closely contested session. Colin Edwards 5th 1.37.142 26 laps “If you’re the next best rider on the timesheets behind the four best in the world then you’re not doing a bad job. And I felt like I did a good job today. We tuned the bike to get rid of some of the small movement issues I had with the front yesterday. It made it more comfortable but the chan ges meant the bike didn’t turn as well. We played around with the setting to make it turn better again but then the movement returned. At this track you need the turning so I can handle the movement. I’m probably trying to make the bike feel too perfect. The first corner here is always pretty tricky and after what happened in Misano I’ll be trying to make it through. I genuinely believe I can fight for the podium tomorrow. I know it will be really difficult but Dani (Pedrosa) had some problems at the end of the race in Misano and nobody is sure whether Casey (Stoner) is going to be able to keep his pace for 28-laps. I’m sure it will be a good race though and I’m looking forward to having a strong finish to the year for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team.” James Toseland 12th 1.37.823 26 laps “It has been a little bit frustrating today because we decided to change the geomet ry and the wheelbase of the bike, but it meant we had less time to find the ideal set-up. Towards the end of the session we found a good set-up and while 12th on the grid is not bad, I feel I could have been at least one row further forward. That’s frustrating but I’m sure I’ll be starting the race tomorrow in pretty good shape. My lap times on race tyres are good and I’m looking forward to a really good warm-up session because we’ll be making a couple of slight tweaks that I think will give us even better performance. The first corner is always quite difficult at this track with it being so tight, so my plan is to try and stay out of trouble, get my head down and have a really good race for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team.” More, from a press release issued by Pramac Racing Team: KALLIO TENTH ON THE PORTUGUESE GP STARTING GRID. CANEPA FOURTEENTH Unlucky day for Mika Kallio who during the Portuguese Grand Prix qualifying session couldn’t manage to conquer more than the tenth position due to the intense traffic encountered in the last laps at his disposal. The Finnish rider made it to position himself in sixth place for most of the session, but when it was the time to push more luck wasn’t on his side. Tomorrow he will have to start from the fourth row and make a good start in the race. His teammate, Niccolò Canepa, isn’t so far from him but has to be satisfied with the fourteenth position on the grid with only two tenth of a second from Mika’s best lap time. The start of the Grand Prix of Portugal is scheduled for tomorrow at 1pm local time. Fabiano Sterlacchini – Pramac Racing Technical Director “We have been really consistent today by entering for the most part of the session between the fastest riders. Unfortunately at the end, at the last exit with a new soft rear tyre, Mika found some traffic that has limited his performances. A pity because if we would have start from the second row Mika could have done a really good race. Anyway nothing is lost, as we know that Mika can make a big difference in the race. Niccolò on the other side of the garage has registered interesting lap times and if tomorrow will make it to start well he will be able to enter the top ten riders group.” Mika Kallio – Pramac Racing rider – 10th in 1’37.813 “I felt really well today and my lap times can prove it. I have been really consistent until the end, but in the last few laps with Melandri and Talmacsi we slow down each other losing too much time. A pity, a silly mistake that have cost us some positions on the starting grid that we will have to recover tomorrow in the first few laps. I remain anyway trustful as the bike is going really well.” Niccolò Canepa – Pramac Racing rider – 13th in 1’38.042 “We had a lot of fun this afternoon. During the three sessions from yesterday to today we have sensibly improved and this give us a lot of hopes not only for tomorrow’s race but for the rest of the season. We have worked really well with the Team today and the bike reacted perfectly to my moves. I am convinced that tomorrow we will be able to do a really good performance.” More, from a press release issued by LCR Honda: DE PUNIET BRILLIANT SIXTH AT SUNNY ESTORIL Estoril, 03 October: after yesterday’s sunny opening day, the temperature was still high (25°C) at Estoril track today for the 800cc qualifying session which saw Yamaha rider Lorenzo on the top of the timesheets with a 1’36.214 lap time. The LCR Honda MotoGP racer Randy De Puniet made solid progress and rode his Honda RC212V to the 6th fastest time on lap 27 of 29 at the 4.182 Km Portuguese race track showing that he is finally in good form after the injury to his ankle two months ago. The Frenchman, who qualified 11th in this morning second free session, continued to search for the optimum setting from his machine in the afternoon session recording a quickest lap time of 1’37.448. De Puniet will start from the second row for tomorrows 28-lap race that gets underway at 13:00 local time and is hoping to get a top-eight finish at the track where he already experienced the podium in the 250cc class. De Puniet 6th 1’37.448 De Puniet 6th: “After the long break it’s nice to come back and if you get the sixth fastest time is even better! We worked pretty well to solve the rear grip problems because yesterday I struggled a lot to open the throttle in the corners exit and we slid too quickly out of the curves. We did make some small improvements which we need to adjust tomorrow but it has been a very positive first part of the week end so far. After much effort due to my injury I finally could push making a stunning flying lap in the qualifying”. More, from a press release issued by Repsol Honda: PEDROSA AND DOVIZIOSO FOURTH AND EIGHTH IN ESTORIL QUALIFYING Qualifying for the Grand Prix of Portugal took place at Estoril today with Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso securing fourth and eighth places on the grid in the hour-long session. Pedrosa finished just 0.174s from Casey Stoner in third, which gives the Spaniard a starting slot at the front of the second row. If Pedrosa can once again make one of his now-customary fast starts, he is confident that further improvements to his machine set-up will allow him to fight at the front of the race tomorrow. Dovizioso was able to increase his pace from yesterday afternoon by seven tenths of a second, though the Italian was a little frustrated to finish in eight today – a ranking which translates into a place in the middle of the third row. That said, the winner of the British Grand Prix and his crew know that with further improvement to their suspension settings they have plenty of potential to find some extra pace, and that’s what they will be focusing on in the 20-minute warm up session. There was some good news for the factory Honda squad today with the news that Repsol will once again be the team’s title sponsor in 2010. This means the Repsol Honda Team will enter its 16th successive season having established itself as one of motorsport’s most recognizable and successful partnerships. Tomorrow’s 28-lap race begins at 1pm local time (GMT +1 hour). DANI PEDROSA 4th 1m 36.702s “We were working hard on machine set-up this morning, though we experienced a few issues which delayed us a little this afternoon in the fight to set the best lap times on the softer Bridgestones. It’s always better to start on the front row of course, but I think fourth is not a bad starting slot. We improved our lap times significantly this afternoon and if we can make a few more improvements to the set-up, everything is possible in the race. It’s difficult to know what the rhythm and race pace will be tomorrow because maybe the conditions will be a little cooler. Casey’s performance today was impressive, so compliments to him – I’m not surprised he was this fast. My main goal for the rest of the season will be to retain third in the championship and we hope take the first step towards that goal tomorrow.” ANDREA DOVIZIOSO 8th 1m 37.541s “We got through a lot set-up work today trying to improve the feeling from the machine at this circuit, which is quite bumpy. There’s definitely more to come, and starting from eighth obviously isn’t ideal -however with a good warm-up tomorrow we should be able to make some progress. At the moment we don’t have the rhythm to fight with the leading riders and we’ll be focussing on suspension settings to try to get closer to them. We cannot be happy with today’s result, but the important thing is to maintain concentration and try our best in the race. The characteristics of this racetrack accentuate some issues we found at the last race in Misano, but I’m confident we have a lot of potential with the Ohlins suspension. Plus we only have experience from one race, so there’s a lot more to come. We be looking to take a step forward in warm-up and to get as strong a result as possible in the race.” KAZUHIKO YAMANO – REPSOL HONDA TEAM MANAGER “Dani was really close to the front row and has more potential so he is looking in quite good shape for tomorrow. If he and his crew can have a profitable warm-up then he has a chance to fight with the leaders tomorrow. Andrea and his team are making progress with the machine set-up and he too can move forward from his current position. The conditions tomorrow may be a little different, so the team will be working hard tonight and in the warm-up to give us the best possible chance in the race. Today we have also had some excellent news about Repsol joining us for another season. This is a very strong and valuable partnership and we’re all focused on creating further success for the Repsol Honda Team.” More, from a press release issued by Marlboro Ducati: STUNNING STONER ON FRONT ROW AT ESTORIL, HAYDEN TO START FROM THIRD ROW Casey Stoner announced his return to the competitive end of the MotoGP grid today with a typically exhilarating qualifying performance at Estoril, where he put in a strong challenge for pole position before settling for a front row start in third place. The Australian was in good physical shape at the end of the hour-long session and the arm-pump problems that he suffered yesterday were not as severe. Stoner moved to the top of the time sheets early in the session, lapping faster than the rest of the field on three consecutive laps. Another brief spell in provisional pole at the midway stage was only bettered by Jorge Lorenzo, who went on to consolidate pole position whilst Valentino Rossi edged out Stoner for second place in the final stages by a mere 0.054 seconds. Nicky Hayden ran the new fairing on both of his Desmosedici machines today and he made gradual set-up progress throughout the day, only for his final flying lap to be thwarted by a clash with another rider on the front straight. CASEY STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team) (3rd; 1’36.528) “Yesterday it looked as though a front row start was a long shot but at the end of the qualifying session today I was actually disappointed not to be on pole! This morning we came out and everything felt good and this afternoon was the same. My body’s sore because I haven’t been on the bike for so long but so far I haven’t struggled with any of the symptoms that had bothered me before the break. We were competitive on race tyres but when we put the soft tyres on to make them work we couldn’t get any grip. We weren’t generating any heat into the right hand side of the tyre so I don’t know if it was a faulty batch or we were just unlucky. The second tyre had more grip but I didn’t use it to its full potential. Anyway, a front row start is nice for us and I want to thank my whole team and everybody else who has stuck by me lately. We’ve had a lot of critics while I’ve been away and I’ve had to laugh at some of the things I’ve read. Tomorrow is the race, which is the big one, but it’s nice to come back in this way and I think we’ve already shown that it was the right decision to take the time off.” NICKY HAYDEN (Ducati Marlboro Team) (9th; 1’37.654) “We’ve made a little bit of progress in every session with every run, just slowly chipping away. We made quite a big change again this afternoon and dropped another eight tenths off the lap time, although obviously some of that was down to using the softer tyre. The team has done a good job we’ve tried a couple of things we’ve never tried before and made some progress. I thought I maybe had the chance to qualify a little bit better but at the start of my last flying lap De Angelis ran into the back of me on the front straightaway! I mean, I can understand if you bump a guy in the middle of a second gear corner or something but there I was doing 274km/h and they can see on the data where the bike came unstable because you can see the steering go side to side. My first instinct was that something had happened to the bike so I shut off the throttle and it ruined my last flying lap. Anyway, we’re on the third row and it’s going to be a long, hard race tomorrow. I know a lot of guys in my group are going about the same speed but if we can take another little step in the morning we’ll be okay. Like always it will be important to get a good start and not get boxed in the first turn. We’ll see.” More, from a press release issued by Dorna Communications: Last year’s race-winner at Estoril, Jorge Lorenzo showed his strengths at the bwin.com Grande Prémio de Portugal again on Saturday as he followed up his free practice dominance with his fifth pole position performance of the year. The Spaniard has not won from pole this year, but he will hope to do so on Sunday as he seeks to reduce the 30-point advantage his team-mate Valentino Rossi enjoys at the top of the standings. Lorenzo’s best Saturday time of 1’36.214 on the 27th of his 29 laps was enough to put him at the front of the grid for the round 14 contest. On the other side of the Fiat Yamaha pit garage Rossi reminded his colleague that he will challenge him on Sunday whatever happens, the Italian lapping a quarter of a second behind Lorenzo. A commendable effort by Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro), on his return to GP action after two months away due to illness, saw the Australian former World Champion bounce back with a front row result courtesy of a best time just 0.054s slower than Rossi’s fastest. Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) has been close to the front in all three sessions so far and is likely to be a threat from the front of the second row on Sunday. The Spaniard was around half a second off Lorenzo’s pace. In fifth place again was the best performing satellite rider of the year so far, Colin Edwards, who has looked consistently fast throughout the weekend on his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 machine. Completing the second row is Randy de Puniet who no longer appears to be suffering from the ankle injury he picked up in the summer and looks back to his best for the LCR Honda team in 2009. The third row features Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki), Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati Marlboro), whilst the qualifying practice top ten was rounded off by Mika Kallio (Pramac Racing). 250cc Héctor Barberá followed the example of Lorenzo, following up on his free practice dominance by securing pole position in the 250cc class. The Pepe World Team rider, who will compete in MotoGP next year with the new Aspar Ducati team, ran out race-winner in the last round at Misano and could be set for another victory in an intriguing 250cc season – if his form so far this weekend is anything to go by. Behind Barberá on the grid in second place Álvaro Bautista (Mapfre Aspar) will be trying to make up points on championship leader Hiroshi Aoyama (Scot Racing Team) who completed a front row – which was separated by just 0.283s behind World Champion Marco Simoncelli (Metis Gilera). Trying to chase down the ‘big guns’ from row two will be Alex Debon (Aeropuerto-Castello-Blusens), the ever-consistent Raffaele de Rosa (Scot Racing), Mattia Pasini (with his new set-up Team Globalgest) and Ratthapark Wilairot (Thai Honda PTT SAG). 125cc As he kept up determined charge towards the 2009 125cc World Championship Julián Simón continued his dominance of the single-cylinders by taking pole position by a 0.540s margin. Like his compatriots Lorenzo and Barberá, Simón has been fastest in every session for his category thus far in Portugal. Simón was a second quicker than all of his rivals in both free practice sessions and again no-one was able to get close to him in the crucial qualifying outing, as he outdid the ‘best of the rest’ of the field by another clear gap, securing his sixth pole of the year. Getting away just behind Simón on the grid will be Pol Espargaró (Derbi Racing Team), whilst Bradley Smith (Bancaja Aspar) produced a good late lap to qualify third as the Englishman tries to prevent his championship leading team-mate from wrapping up the title on Sunday. Marc Márquez (Red Bull KTM) completes the front row, whilst Stefan Bradl (Viessmann Kiefer Racing), Nico Terol (Jack & Jones Team), Sandro Cortese (Ajo Interwetten) and Simone Corsi (Fontana Racing) are all on row two. Tomorrow’s MotoGP race takes place at 1pm local time (GMT+1), with the 250cc race at 11.15am local and the 125cc race at the later than usual time of 2.30pm local. More, from a press release issued by Honda: PEDROSA JUST 0.174 SECONDS OFF ESTORIL FRONT ROW Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) and Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) were Honda’s top performers in this afternoon’s Portuguese GP qualifying session, the pair ending the outing fourth and sixth fastest. Pedrosa missed a front-row start by a tantalising 0.174 seconds, putting him off the front row for the first time since July’s British Grand Prix. Nevertheless the Spaniard is still on the pace here, less than half a second off pole-sitter Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) and just a fraction off second- and third-fastest Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) and Casey Stoner (Ducati), who is back in action after a nine-week layoff. Winner of this year’s US GP, Pedrosa is currently locked in a battle for third place overall with Stoner. He is confident of more progress in morning warm-up to further boost his chances of a strong result in tomorrow’s race, the 14th of this year’s 17-race series. De Puniet was justifiably delighted with his performance. The Frenchman, now almost fully recovered from the broken left ankle he sustained in July, solved some traction problems to come close to equalling his best grid slot of the year, the fifth places he scored at Jerez and Mugello. Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) is still learning his way with Öhlins suspension, which he raced for the very first time at last month’s San Marino GP. The Italian is working steadily through the set-up options with his Öhlins front forks and rear shock, gaining more vital data with each and every outing. Alex De Angelis (San Carlo Honda Gresini) and his crew have worked hard at this tight and tortuous track to keep his RCV running tight lines, but they only found the solution to their problems quite late in the day. That left the Indy podium finisher 11th fastest in a closely bunched mid-pack, with less than half a second covering sixth to 13th places. Thirteenth place belongs to Toni Elias (San Carlo Honda Gresini) who struggled yesterday, leaving him with plenty of catching up to do during today’s two sessions. The Spaniard was hoping for a better grid position but was unable to get the best out of his soft Bridgestone’s at the end of this afternoon’s outing. Gabor Talmacsi (Scot Honda) has struggled to improve his times here and believes he’s taking a wrong direction in machine set-up. Changes are thus likely in morning warm-up. 250 World Championship leader Hiroshi Aoyama (Scot Honda) rode a superb session to put his RS250RW on the front row of the grid in fourth spot. The Japanese ace, who currently leads Alvaro Bautista (Aprilia) by 13 points, ended the 45 minute outing less than three tenths off pole position, which went to Hector Barbera (Aprilia). Bautista was second with Marco Simoncelli (Gilera) third. Aoyama was hoping for cooler weather here, which would give him more horsepower, and it’s possible that conditions may be slightly cooler for tomorrow’s race. Whatever the weather, he is sure he can squeeze more performance from his Honda in morning warm-up. Raffaele De Rosa (Scot Honda) equalled his best 250 qualifying performance with a great ride to sixth fastest today. And the youngster, who has scored points in every race so far, reckons he can go even better tomorrow. Ratthapark Wilairot (Thai Honda PTT-SAG) rode brilliantly to make it onto the second row of the grid. The Thai ace was eighth fastest, less than six tenths off pole, and only one place off his best grid slot of the year so far seventh at Mugello. And Wilairot reckons he might have done better if he hadn’t spent much of the session looking for good slipstreams off other riders. Hector Faubel (Valencia CF-Honda SAG) also had high hopes of a great grid position and was ready to run some fast times on new tyres when he ran into heavy traffic at the end of the session. He ended the day 11th quickest. Hiroshi’s brother Shuhei Aoyama (Racing Team Germany Honda) returned to GP action this weekend, taking over the RS250 formerly ridden by Bastien Chesaux, who has left the team. Aoyama, who contested this year’s Japanese 250 GP as a wild card and scored a great sixth-place finish, hasn’t ridden 250s full-time since 2007. Nonetheless the Japanese did well today, lapping less than a second outside the top eight to place 15th. Team-mates Shoya Tomizawa (Team CIP Honda) and Valentin Debise (Team CIP Honda) are both Estoril first-timers and have had to learn the secrets of this complex track over the past two days. Tomizawa ended today 17th fastest, two places in front of Debise. HONDA MotoGP RIDER QUOTES Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda: fourth, 1m 36.702s. “We were working hard on machine set-up this morning, though we experienced a few issues which delayed us a little this afternoon in the fight to set the best lap times on the softer Bridgestone’s. It’s always better to start on the front row of course, but I think fourth is not a bad starting slot. We improved our lap times significantly this afternoon and if we can make a few more improvements to the set-up, everything is possible in the race. It’s difficult to know what the rhythm and race pace will be tomorrow because maybe the conditions will be a little cooler. Casey’s performance today was impressive, so compliments to him I’m not surprised he was this fast. My main goal for the rest of the season will be to retain third in the championship and we hope take the first step towards that goal tomorrow.” Randy de Puniet, LCR Honda: sixth, 1m 37.448s. “After the long break it’s nice to come back, and when you get the sixth fastest time it’s even better! We worked pretty well to solve the rear grip problems because yesterday I struggled a lot to open the throttle in the corner exits and we were sliding too much out of the curves. We did make some small improvements which we need to adjust tomorrow but it has been a very positive first part of the weekend. After much effort due to my injury, I finally could push to make a stunning flying lap in the qualifying”. Andrea Dovizioso, Repsol Honda: eighth, 1m 37.541s. “We got through a lot set-up work today trying to improve the feeling from the machine at this circuit, which is quite bumpy. There’s definitely more to come, and starting from eighth obviously isn’t ideal. However, with a good warm-up tomorrow we should be able to make some progress. At the moment we don’t have the rhythm to fight with the leading riders and we’ll be focussing on suspension settings to try to get closer to them. We cannot be happy with today’s result, but the important thing is to maintain concentration and try our best in the race. The characteristics of this racetrack accentuate some issues we found at the last race in Misano, but I’m confident we have a lot of potential with the Öhlins suspension. Plus we only have experience from one race, so there’s a lot more to come. We be looking to take a step forward in warm-up and to get as strong a result as possible in the race.” Alex De Angelis, San Carlo Honda Gresini: 11th, 1m 37.822s. “Physically I feel a bit better today but we’ve been struggling with the bike. I wasn’t able to keep it close to the apex in the tight corners, it was running wide everywhere, but we made a change at the end that helped a lot. It brought us back into contention and if we’d have had more time to build on it and make another step we could have been much higher up the order. Anyway, I’m happy that we’re working in the right direction now it’s a case of waiting to see what the conditions are tomorrow, talking things through with Bridgestone and making the right tyre choice. “ Toni Elias, San Carlo Honda Gresini: 13th, 1m 37.911s. “I’m quite pleased with my race pace and I think we’ve done a good job. We were in bad shape yesterday but like at a lot of other races where we have had bad Fridays we were able to turn the situation around on the Saturday. I was up there in fifth or sixth, occasionally up to fourth, and I think that is the kind of position we should be in. Unfortunately things didn’t work out on the softer tyre. Just when I was putting together a fast lap I ran into Toseland and Dovizioso in the middle of the track and I was blocked. It’s a shame to be starting from thirteenth but that’s the way it is and now we have to fight back just like I did at Assen and Sachsenring.” Gabor Talmacsi, Scot Honda: 17th, 1m 39.320s. “More or less, we wer getting the same lap times in every session, which is unusual normally you improve from the first practice to qualifying. My feeling is that at some point we went in the wrong direction: we have to go back, and find what can allow us to improve for the race.” HONDA 250cc RIDER QUOTES Hiroshi Aoyama, Scot Honda: fourth, 1m 40.879s. “I’m not totally happy because I ran into some traffic during the last laps which slowed me down. The bike is okay. We still need to improve the performance in the morning warm-up, but we know we can do it and I’m quite confident for the race.” Raffaele De Rosa, Scot Honda: sixth, 1m 41.169s. “In the past years our bike has always suffered at some tracks, but not this season because the team did a great job. That means we can compete at high level everywhere. I’m satisfied with my qualifying. I lost the chance to do better because of the traffic but we are OK with the tyres and I’m in the first group, so I will start from a good position. I hope I can show here in Portugal what we haven’t been able to to show in other races.” Ratthapark Wilairot, Thai Honda PTT-SAG: eighth, 1m 41.190s. “Today it was difficult to make the best adjustments to the bike because it was already good, but we did find a good final setting. My problem was that I have been losing too much time waiting a good slipstream and I lost a good opportunity to be on the first row. Anyway, I’m happy because I’m starting from the second row and this give us a good chance to be in a competitive position in tomorrow’s race. I hope that the weather forecast that says we might have rain tomorrow is wrong.” Hector Faubel, Valencia CF-Honda SAG: 11th, 1m 41.537s. “Today was really good because the bike was working really well but at the end of qualifying I made a mistake. We fitted new tyres and I pushed hard from that moment but there was a lot of traffic and so I lost any chance of being on the first or second rows. Anyway, I think I have a good race pace. Tomorrow we need a good start to go with the front riders.” Shuhei Aoyama, Racing Team Germany Honda: 15th, 1m 42.194s. “First off, my thanks to everyone involved for this great opportunity. It’s wonderful to be back in 250 GPs. We could not test before the race, so we started more from ‘minus’ than from ‘zero’! To start with, things were difficult, but I concentrated very hard. We have improved a lot today, especially with the tyres and the engine, so I could get into a good rhythm at the end of qualifying.” Shoya Tomizawa, Team CIP Honda: 17th, 1m 42.348s. “It has been quite difficult here. I think this is a very tricky track, both for learning the layout and for working on the set-up, so I’ve had to learn a lot on my first visit to Estoril. In the end I think we found a reasonable set-up and I hope to keep learning in tomorrow’s race.” Valentin Debise, Team CIP Honda: 19th, 1m 43.427s. “This is also my first time here, and there is so much to learn. The balance of the bike is very complicated here because there is a lot of heavy braking, some very slow corners and a few fast corners. I have been having some issues with the front pushing, so we need to work some more on that, both on set-up and on my riding style.”