DISASTROUS WET QUALIFYING FOR LORENZO LEAVES HIM LAST IN
BRNO
A soaking wet day at Brno brought about a depressing day’s
work for Jorge Lorenzo, the Fiat Yamaha Team rookie finishing
the day in last place. It is a far cry from the consecutive
pole positions with which the youngster started his year in
MotoGP and he is faced with a difficult task tomorrow to make
any kind of headway through the field.
Lorenzo was unlucky to miss the driest part of the qualifying
hour, when he was inside the garage working on modifying his
bike in order to try to find more grip. During the last forty
minutes conditions deteriorated even more and there was no
chance for him to improve his time, unable as he was to find
any kind of grip or confidence in his tyres. His time of 2’23.701
left him outside of the 107% qualifying cut-off, but he will
be allowed to race tomorrow at the discretion of Race Direction.
His team-mate Valentino Rossi meanwhile had a better day
and will start tomorrow’s race from second on the grid,
behind Casey Stoner.
Jorge Lorenzo
Position: 17th Time: 2'23.701 Laps: 12
“It’s been a bad day! At the start of the qualifying
it was drier and this is when I was in the garage trying to
improve the bike with my team; I missed my chance and this
is when the others set their fastest laps. I have had days
almost as bad as this before, but I have to say that the fault
is not all mine. I think that it is evident at the moment
that our tyres are not working as they should. I am a professional
however and I have to wait and have confidence in Michelin
to find the right way forward. For tomorrow it’s going
to be important to get a good start and try to get in the
top ten. The surface is very good but we don’t have
the grip we need, so whatever happens with the weather, it
will be very hard.”
Daniele Romagnoli
Team Manager
“A really bad day for us; the worst qualifying session
of the season. We already had some issues with front grip
in the dry yesterday and we thought that in the rain we would
be able to improve. Unfortunately things went even more wrong
today and we couldn’t find any grip for both the front
and the rear. We tried all the tyres available and, even with
the softest, Jorge didn’t have enough confidence to
ride at a decent pace. We had already tried some different
settings this morning to try to improve the grip and this
afternoon we tried some even bigger modifications, but the
bike didn’t react to the changes in the way we hoped
because of the low grip level from the tyres. Tomorrow will
be a really hard race because we’re starting from last
and, even if we can improve our pace in the dry, it’s
still going to be very difficult.”
Qualifying Times
FRONT ROW
1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 2'11.657
2. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 2'12.846
3. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 2'12.959
SECOND ROW
4. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 2'13.002
5. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 2'13.352
6. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing 2'14.064
THIRD ROW
7. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 2'14.718
8. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 2'14.805
9. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 2'14.861
FOURTH ROW
10. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 2'15.535
11. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 2'15.880
12. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 2'16.032
FIFTH ROW
13. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 2'16.510
14. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 2'17.632
15. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha 2'20.074
SIXTH ROW
16. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 2'23.303
17. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 2'23.701
Brno: Record Lap
L. Capirossi (Ducati) 2006, 1'58.157
Brno: Best Lap
V. Rossi (Yamaha) 2006, 1'56.191
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