GAULOISES YAMAHA TEAM FACING RACE DAY CHALLENGE
Gauloises Yamaha Team riders Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards
will start from the second and third row of the grid respectively
in tomorrow’s Portuguese Grand Prix after a highly competitive
qualifying session at Estoril this afternoon. In bright sunshine
and tepid ambient temperatures of 16º degrees, both Rossi
and Edwards mounted pole attacks in an entertaining finale
to the session but were unable to convert their good race
pace into a front row grid position. Valentino Rossi, who
has taken victory for the past four successive seasons at
this circuit, qualified fourth fastest after working intensively
on the race set-up of his YZR-M1 machine until the final fifteen
minutes. The World Champion appeared to have sealed third
place on the grid for tomorrow’s race after lapping
inside last year’s pole record but he was dislodged
by a surprise late flurry from Carlos Checa (Ducati). Rossi’s
Gauloises Yamaha team-mate Colin Edwards also lost places
in the late scrap for times, making a mistake on his best
lap and dropping to seventh place. Alex Barros (Honda) took
pole position with a time of 1’37.202 and is joined
on the front row by Sete Gibernau (Honda) and Checa.
VALENTINO ROSSI, 4th – (1’37.643, 28 laps)
“The bike has changed a lot since we raced here last
year so we have had to work hard on the setting. It was probably
better this morning than it was in the afternoon but it is
virtually impossible to get a perfect set-up at this track
and fourth place isn’t bad. I’m still having problems
getting heat into the left-hand side of the tyre. We tried
some different tyres today to try and fix that but we’re
still not at 100%. There are four or five guys with a good
rhythm and I think the pace will be very fast tomorrow. If
the weather is good then it should be a group race and it
will be a very tough battle.”
COLIN EDWARDS (1’38.003, 28 laps)
"That was tough! We’ve worked hard this weekend
on my race pace and we’re pretty pleased with how it’s
looking but I had difficulties again on the qualification
tyres. Part of the problem is that you only have two laps
to get it right and if you make a mistake it can cost you
several positions on the grid. I ran a little wide in turn
one on my best lap so there are definitely a few tenths we
can make up. Generally we need to make the bike more stable
and rider friendly but we’re getting there. We’ll
see what happens with the weather tomorrow. I’d prefer
it to be dry for the fans and the TV but I won’t mind
if it rains – it would be kind of good to have a wet
race at this stage of the season and the bike felt good in
the wet at the Jerez tests. Either way is good for me.”
DAVIDE BRIVIO – TEAM DIRECTOR
“With Valentino we spent quite a lot of the session
working on his race setting. He has a good pace but we will
try to make it better in the morning. Colin also has a good
base set-up but it is fair to say there is room for improvement
with both of them. The last fifteen minutes were a good battle
for the hot lap and some riders emerged who we haven’t
seen much of this weekend. In any case both our riders have
reasonable grid positions and a good race pace so we are confident.
It is going to be a very tough race. If it rains it will be
even more unpredictable!”
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