DUCATI MARLBORO MEN HAVE THE RIGHT RACE PACE
 The
sun finally shone at Le Mans this afternoon, offering MotoGP
riders their first fully dry session of the weekend. Ducati
Marlboro Team riders Carlos Checa and Loris Capirossi ran
strongly in the early stages of the qualifying outing, slipping
back to ninth and tenth in the final minutes. But both men
are in confident mood after showing a consistently fast pace
on race tyres in a frantic session which ended with just 0.765
seconds covering the quickest 12.
“Our grid positions here aren't the best but both Carlos
and Loris have proved they are fast in race trim, which is
what really matters," said Ducati MotoGP project manager
Livio Suppo. "Everyone's lap times are really close and
both our guys are only half a second off pole, so I think
we can expect a good fight tomorrow. We don't know what to
expect from the weather but I think we will be okay rain or
sun, because Carlos and Loris were both good also in this
morning's wet session. As always, thanks to all our technical
partners, especially Bridgestone, who are making excellent
progress, and Shell Advance."
CHECA ON ROW THREE
Carlos Checa will start tomorrow's French Grand Prix from
the third row of the grid after posting ninth fastest time
this afternoon. The Ducati Marlboro Team man ended up just
about two tenth off first row.
"I feel quite confident on the bike," said Checa.
"We came here with a slightly different base chassis
configuration from what we ran at the first three races because
we wanted to make the bike turn into corners more quickly.
The bike does seem a bit better into slow corners, though
it'll be good to confirm that when we test here on Monday
and Tuesday. My race pace was fine and I would have been faster
on my final qualifying run if I hadn't come across another
rider going slow through one of the chicanes on my second
lap. We're making progress, and I'm looking forward for tomorrow."
CAPIROSSI TENTH AFTER MINOR ERROR ON HOT LAP
Loris Capirossi came through two days of constantly changing
weather conditions to run tenth in qualifying and put himself
on the fourth row of the grid. The Ducati Marlboro Team man
is happy with improvements here made by his engineers to his
GP5's fuel mapping.
"Even if my grid position isn't the best, the bike
and the tyres are working okay," he said. "On my
final qualifying run I was on a really good lap but I ran
wide through the last turn and then gave it too much throttle,
which lost me time. That's the kind of thing that can happen
when you're going for one very fast lap. Before that I did
a ten-lap endurance run, maintaining a very good rhythm. I'm
really happy with how the bike's behaving, both in the wet
and the dry. For sure, a fourth-row start won't help, so what
I really need is a good start, because if I can get away with
the leading pack, I think I can maintain a good pace."
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