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Valentino Rossi
sealed his tenth front-row start of the season ahead of
tomorrow's Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi today, the Italian
taking second place on an all-Michelin front row in between
Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden. Colin Edwards also had a good
session, qualifying seventh at the head of the third row.
After making a poor start to the weekend
by finishing 14th yesterday, Rossi made a step up this
morning and put in the second fastest time in free practice.
His qualifying session did not get off to plan however as he
made an off-track excursion in the opening minutes and then
found himself down in 18th place mid-way through. Edwards
meanwhile, was doing little better in 17th, but both began
to steadily improve as they worked on refining their race
settings and finalising their tyre choices for tomorrow
Once it came down to qualifying tyres it
was clear that Rossi especially was on top form and his
first run put him in second place, before improving again
with his second tyre and moving one place higher. Pedrosa
was even faster however and, despite Rossi's Michelin tyre
working well enough to give him a second flying lap, a small
mistake on the last corner cost him a few tenths and he was
unable to better the Spaniard. Edwards also put in two good
qualifying laps and looked to have sixth in the bag before
he was edged down one place by Toni Elias.
Tomorrow's 24-lap race gets underway at
1400 Japanese time. Rossi must finish in front of Casey
Stoner in order to keep his championship hopes alive for
another race; the Australian will start from ninth tomorrow,
on the outside of the third row.
Valentino
Rossi (Position: 2nd; Time:
1'46.255; Laps: 25)
"I'm in good
shape and I'm very happy with this result after the problems
we had yesterday. We were struggling a lot but everyone has
worked very hard and today has been much, much better. We
tried some modifications and now I can use the throttle well
and the grip from the tyres is good. In fact today the tyre
situation is really a lot better and I can use my M1 how I
want to, with a good rhythm. This morning especially was a
big improvement although this afternoon we tried some
different things again and it wasn't quite so good to start
with. Pedrosa's rhythm is slightly better than mine at the
moment so we have one or two things to work on, but we're
definitely in a good position and we are starting from the
front row, which is the most important factor. I was very
happy with the qualifying tyres because I was able to do two
laps with the second one.
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