FIFTH FRONT ROW PUTS ROSSI IN THE RUNNING AT ASSEN
Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi took his fifth front
row start of the 2008 season at Assen today, ahead of tomorrow’s
60th Dutch TT. The Italian missed out on pole by just 0.139
seconds and will share the front row with Casey Stoner and
Dani Pedrosa, his closest championship rivals.
The bright sunshine of yesterday gave way to bad weather
this morning and the first session was run on a wet track,
with Rossi finishing seventh. The sun came out after lunch
and the track was dry for qualifying, giving the team some
time to continue with yesterday’s work and refine their
dry set-up. During the last third of the session Rossi was
able to improve with each of his Bridgestone qualifying tyres
and looked to be in with a chance of pole on his final flying
lap, when a small problem in the final sector lost him his
advantage. Second place behind Stoner looked secure until
a last-minute dash from Pedrosa relegated him to the outside
of the front row, with his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo two rows
behind him in seventh.
Rain is a possibility tomorrow and with the weather at Assen
generally changing extremely quickly, the team may have to
wait until just before the race to make a final tyre decision.
Tomorrow’s 26-lap race will begin at 1400 CET.
Valentino Rossi
Position: 3rd Time: 1'35.659 Laps: 29
“Like always, the front row is our target and so we
are happy with this third position. Anyway it’s better
than last year, when I was 11th! We made some small modifications
with the qualifying tyre and today everything seemed to work
very well. Now we hope that it will translate to the race
tyre, although of course we have to wait and see what the
weather is like before we can make a choice, things change
so quickly here! I was able to try for pole and I thought
it was possible on the last lap, but unfortunately I had a
small problem with the last tyre. Today we were all very close,
closer than yesterday, but I think we still need to improve
a bit more if we’re going to be sure to be able to fight
with Casey, so we will try to finalise things tomorrow morning.”
Davide Brivio
Team Manager
“It’s very good to be on the front row and it
was good to see Valentino so fast this afternoon with the
qualifying tyre and going very close to pole position. We
still have some important final tuning to do in order to be
able to stay at the front tomorrow, and then we will just
have to see how the race develops. Of course we’re all
hoping for it to be dry but it’s difficult to know what
to expect with the weather here! It’s clear that Stoner
is very strong again, but we will be hoping to be able to
go with him.”
Qualifying Times
FRONT ROW
1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 1'35.520
2. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 1'35.552
3. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'35.659
SECOND ROW
4. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 1'35.975
5. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1'35.985
6. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'36.278
THIRD ROW
7. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'36.532
8. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1'36.768
9. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'36.804
FOURTH ROW
10. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1'36.823
11. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 1'36.899
12. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'36.948
FIFTH ROW
13. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'36.978
14. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 1'37.287
15. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 1'37.643
SIXTH ROW
16. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing 1'37.793
17. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 1'38.726
Assen: Record Lap
N. Hayden (Honda) 2006, 1'37.106
Assen: Best Lap
J. Hopkins (Suzuki) 2006, 1'36.411
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