Grand Prix of Catalunya - Qualifying Practice
Catalunya Circuit, Spain
PRAMAC D’ANTIN MOTOGP : HIGH TEMPERATURES
AT BARCELONA
The sun and the hot weather came back on the Catalan track
and there were no meteorological surprises today, during this
Saturday’s session of qualifying practice. Tomorrow,
on the DUCATI DESMOSEDICI GP06 “Sat.” (DUNLOP
tyres), the German ALEX HOFMANN will start from the 17th position
on the grid, victim of a crash in the last try to improve
his time with the qualification tyres; and the Spanish JOSE
LUIS CARDOSO will start from the 19th position.
Tomorrow, the race of the MotoGP class will start at 2 p.m.
on the Catalunya circuit and the whole Team obviously hopes
to go on conquesting points for the classification of the
2006 MotoGP World Championship, in front of all their sponsors
and supporters.
ALEX HOFMANN #66 (17th - 1’44.626):
“Today my aim was to obtain more trust on the front.
The session didn’t start bad but I had some difficulties
with the race tyres, as the ground temperature really was
high. At the end of the session, I used three qualification
tyres of the same type: with the second one it didn’t
go bad and I wanted to improve even more afterwards, but I
crashed in the corner n.4, luckily without any physical consequences.
A real pity, I had good feelings, I wanted to go faster and
I just lose the front, without feeling any tyre’s limit.
Anyway, we’re ready for the race, slightly closer to
the other riders if we talk about the rhythm, but that is
not enough and I want to make so much more. Besides, we can’t
verify the effective duration of our race tyres before tomorrow’s
race. On the other hand, one thing that makes me very happy
is that my logo “alex66.com” will start from the
first row, appearing on the leather suit of my friend John
Hopkins”.
JOSE LUIS CARDOSO #30 (19th - 1’45.562):
“I’m not satisfied. This morning, during the last
session of free practice, things definitely went better and
I was more constant with my lap times, something that was
then impossible during the session of qualifying practice.
The motorcycle was moving a lot and I hadn’t the sensations
I had in the morning anymore. I don’t know if it was
because of the higher temperatures but, anyway, the situation
was the same for everybody. At the end of the session, I rode
with qualification tyres but their duration was lower than
an entire lap and this didn’t allow me to improve anymore.
For tomorrow, let’s hope that the conditions will be
more adapted and let’s see what will happen. I would
really like to obtain a better result, I will race in front
of my public and I don’t want to disappoint anybody”.
EMANUELE MARTINELLI - Track Engineer of Alex Hofmann:
“Tomorrow, if the temperature of the ground will be
as high as this afternoon, the situation will be very hard
for our tyres that especially suffer these conditions. We
will use the tyre we tried at Mugello during the private test
we did on Monday after the race, it gave slightly better results
than the oldest ones, but it had been tested with lowest temperatures
than today’s ones. Unfortunately, every time we make
a step ahead, something always happen that quite ruins our
improvements. Anyway, we worked very hard and we’re
ready for tomorrow’s race. Obviously, we hope the weather
will be cooler, so that the ground will be more adequate to
our tyres”.
1. Valentino Rossi 1’41.855
2. John Hopkins 1’41.984
3. Kenny Roberts Jr. 1’42.055
4. Chris Vermeulen 1’42.211
5. Shinya Nakano 1’42.216
17. Alex Hofmann 1’44.626
19. Jose Luis Cardoso 1’45.562
Conditions: Dry / Air: 28°c / Ground: 46°c / Humidity:
20%
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