Capirossi confident ahead of Portuguese Grand Prix
 Rizla
Suzuki MotoGP racer Loris Capirossi is positive he can deliver
a good result from tomorrow’s Portuguese Grand Prix
despite qualifying on the fourth row after a big crash at
Estoril today.
Capirossi (P12, 1’37.786, 22 laps) was on his first
qualifying tyre when he made a mistake going into a fast right-hand
turn and lost traction, causing him to crash very spectacularly
at high-speed. The gutsy Italian picked himself up and managed
to get back to the pit-box to continue with the session, but
he was unable to better the time he had set previously on
race tyres. Capirossi and his crew had made big improvements
to his Suzuki GSV-R during the early part of the qualifying
session and was on a competitive race-pace towards the top
of the time-sheets, which is certainly an encouraging sign
for tomorrow’s 28-lap race.
Chris Vermeulen (P13, 1’37.843, 29 laps) couldn’t
find the extra speed he wanted from his qualifying tyres and
will start on the fifth row at the 4,182m Estoril track tomorrow.
He also improved on his race pace and is pleased with his
set-up for the race. Vermeulen is now determined to get a
good start and be challenging for a much higher position in
the race.
Today’s qualification was held in sunny, but windy
conditions with track temperatures getting up to 40ºC.
Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo on his factory Yamaha took his third
pole position in a row.
Tomorrow’s race is round three of the 2008 MotoGP World
Championship and the event gets underway at 13.00hrs local
time (12.00hrs GMT) on Sunday 13th April.
Loris Capirossi:
“We have to think about tomorrow, because for us the
qualifying was pretty bad - I tried a bit too hard on my first
tyre and I crashed! I am very happy about the race rhythm,
we tried to find a good setting and the best tyre for the
race and for sure the whole package now seems really good.
I am very happy with where we are on race tyres and I will
need to get a good start and try to out-brake a few people
into the first corner. We worked really hard today and found
many good things and we now have to take that into tomorrow.
It is not the best thing being so far back on the grid, but
I am 100% optimistic for a good result – maybe more
so than I was at Jerez!”
Chris Vermeulen:
“It was a very disappointing qualifying session and
again we really struggled to get the extra bit of grip and
time out of the qualifying tyres. There didn’t seem
to be any more grip from the qualifiers than there was from
the race tyres! It is quite difficult when the race times
are so close because we are now starting so far back that
it will all be down to the start and getting away well. I
have got quite good tyres for the race, they are a pretty
hard compound but they work very well and I can do low 38s,
high 37s on them, so hopefully that will be quick enough tomorrow
to get me into the front group.”
Paul Denning - Team Manager:
“We haven’t had a good qualifying result so far
this year and today was no different – unfortunately!
Without question though there are some positives to take from
it, the main one being that Loris set his best qualifying
time on a race tyre that had done a few laps and we have improved
the speed of the bike considerably for both riders since yesterday.
As ever, starting from further down the grid won’t be
easy, but let’s see what happens. If conditions are
similar to this afternoon and we get a bit of luck we could
be on for a pretty good result!”
bwin.com Grande Premio de Portugal Qualifying Classification:
1. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) 1’35.715: 2. Dani Pedrosa
(Honda) +0.233: 3. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) +0.484: 4. Nicky
Hayden (Honda) +0.551: 5. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) +0.574: 12.
LORIS CAPIROSSI (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +2.071: 13. CHRIS VERMEULEN
(RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +2.128:
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