ROSSI ON POLE AFTER TROPICAL WASHOUT AT SEPANG
 Camel
Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi will start from pole position
for the second consecutive race tomorrow after a tropical
downpour forced the cancellation of this afternoon’s
MotoGP qualifying session at Sepang. With several sections
of circuit still several inches underwater even after the
rain had ceased, the riders were forced through an agonising
wait before Race Direction decided to base the grid line-up
on the best times of each rider from the three previous free
practice sessions. A stunning pole record lap from the Italian
this morning was therefore enough to put him at the front
of the pack for the thirteenth round of the championship,
which takes place one hour later than usual tomorrow, at 3pm
local time.
Whilst the weather played into the hands of Rossi it was a
different story for his team-mate Colin Edwards, who had been
hoping for more dry track time to improve his pace aboard
the YZR-M1 after struggling to find an adequate set-up yesterday.
Edwards made some progress this morning and was hoping for
further improvement in the afternoon but he will now have
to focus on tomorrow’s warm-up session before starting
the race from eleventh place. Rossi will be joined on the
front row of the grid by series leader Nicky Hayden (Honda)
and Loris Capirossi (Ducati).
VALENTINO ROSSI (1st – 2’00.605; 23 laps)
“I don’t know if it is harder to go and ride in
those conditions or stand around waiting for two hours in
your leathers! Seriously though the safety was the most important
issue today – there was a lot of water on the track
and the conditions were very bad. At two or three points it
was like a river running across the surface and the water
was very deep. As a member of the MotoGP Safety Commission
I spoke with Race Direction and I also went down pit-lane
to chat with the other riders and we all agreed that the best
thing was to not ride, not just because of the water but also
the limited vision". You couldn’t even see turn
one at one point! I think that shows everybody is clever and
the situation has changed from ten years ago – the riders
now have more power over these situations and that is a good
thing. This morning the bike was really good and I was able
to ride it at 100% and use the tyres properly. We went back
more to the setting we found in pre-season here and straight
away I was able to set some fast times. We even had time to
try a qualifying tyre and I suppose I was lucky we did that
after what happened in the afternoon. We have a few options
for the race tyre but we’ll wait and see what the weather
is like tomorrow before deciding – hopefully it will
be dry.”
 COLIN
EDWARDS (11th – 2’02.800; 22 laps)
“The weather has really messed things up today! Valentino
found the magical set-up this morning, which was much closer
to the set-up we used at the tests in January, and our plan
was to try it this afternoon. Unfortunately the rain put paid
to that and, having not used a qualifying tyre like he did
this morning, we’re now going to have to start from
11th on the grid - which is not ideal, to say the least. Now
we’re going to have to do what we hoped to do this afternoon
in the warm-up tomorrow and hope that we can get everything
sorted in just twenty minutes. Then it’s going to be
a case of getting my head down and trying to fight my way
through the pack.”
DAVIDE BRIVIO – CAMEL YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR
“What a strange day! It was a good morning practice
for Valentino – he made a big improvement with the bike
and tested a qualifying tyre, which helped us in the strange
situation this afternoon. He made a great lap time but his
general pace shows that the steps made with the bike are in
the right direction. We are happy about that and now we feel
confident about tomorrow, it is good to be on pole again.
Unfortunately Colin wasn’t helped by the weather because
we feel he could have improved his grid position but he didn’t
get the chance to do that so it’s a shame – it
was a good and bad day for us from that perspective. The weather
might be a problem tomorrow too if the storms come back so
now we are all just hoping for nice weather when we open the
curtains tomorrow.”
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