British Grand Prix Qualifying - Rossi
Ambient temperature: 12 degrees
Track temperature: 15 degrees
Humidity: 81%
 FRONT
ROW START FOR ROSSI’S 200TH RACE
Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi will start his 200th
Grand Prix from the front row of the grid tomorrow, after
a consistent performance in the wet this afternoon put him
second for tomorrow’s British round at Donington Park.
The Italian will be bidding for his eighth career win at this
track but tomorrow promises to be no easy challenge, with
today’s wet weather expected to give way to high winds.
After a dry day yesterday today was wet throughout, a steady
British drizzle soaking the track and making the already-slippery
surface even more difficult to deal with, a situation that
gave rise to several crashes in this morning’s free
practice. Rossi stayed upright but struggled with set-up issues
and remained two seconds off the pace in ninth position. Some
hard work from his engineers and mechanics proved fruitful
this afternoon however and he was immediately more comfortable
in this afternoon’s qualifying session, lapping consistently
in the top five. Half way through the session the rain ceased
and the track began to dry further and, although a dry racing
line never appeared, Rossi was able to put a string of fast
laps together in the last twenty minutes and his best time
was good enough for second, behind Casey Stoner and just ahead
of Chris Vermeulen.
It was a difficult day for Rossi’s team-mate Jorge
Lorenzo, who was unable to find a comfortable setting this
afternoon after looking promising in this morning’s
session. The Spaniard will be in 17th position, on the sixth
row, when the British Grand Prix gets underway at 1500 GMT
tomorrow.
Valentino Rossi
Position: 2nd Time: 1'38.881 Laps: 30
“I’m so happy with this qualifying result and
it’s very important for us that we’re on the front
row tomorrow. We know that our Bridgestone tyres are very
fast in the wet but this morning we had some problems with
the setting and honestly I was quite concerned! Anyway, we
made some important changes to the set-up for the afternoon
and straight away the balance was better and I was able to
open the throttle when I wanted to, in fact I had a lot of
fun! With more small modifications throughout qualifying things
got even better and lap-by-lap we were able to get faster,
especially at the end. Now we are waiting for the weather
in order to decide the tyres. If it’s dry we have quite
a big question mark about some things but we have some good
ideas and I am not too worried. It’s my 200th race and
it’s very exciting for me to reach another landmark
in my career but for now I think about it as just another
race.”
Davide Brivio
Team Manager
“This was a very good session for us and the team and
engineers have done an excellent job after this morning, when
we had some problems. They had some good ideas and we have
made a strong recovery to come back and qualify on the front
row. Valentino was riding very well in the wet and it’s
very important for him to be on the front row here. Tomorrow
could be difficult because it looks like the warm-up will
be dry but we’re not so sure for the race, it may be
very windy but we will just have to deal with whatever comes!”
Qualifying Times
FRONT ROW
1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 1'38.232
2. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'38.881
3. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1'39.018
SECOND ROW
4. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 1'39.270
5. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'39.601
6. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 1'39.783
THIRD ROW
7. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing 1'39.995
8. Ben Spies (USA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1'40.244
9. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 1'40.350
FOURTH ROW
10. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'40.417
11. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 1'40.539
12. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1'40.595
FIFTH ROW
13. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'40.667
14. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1'41.110
15. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 1'41.379
SIXTH ROW
16. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'41.751
17. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'41.873
18. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 1'42.933
Donington Park: Record Lap
D. Pedrosa (Honda) 2006, 1'28.714
Donington Park: Best Lap
D. Pedrosa (Honda) 2006, 1'27.676
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