Stoner and Pedrosa shine in wet and crazy qualifying session |
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| Saturday, 07 July 2012 16:56 | |||
 The Sachsenring circuit today played host to a very exciting and tricky qualifying session, where once again the Repsol Honda Team have finished at the top.In a full wet session that saw four different polemen within the last 15 seconds, Casey Stoner took the best lap time with 1'31.796 to claim his fourth pole of the season and Dani Pedrosa finishing third with 1'32.081, securing a very important front row spot for tomorrow's race. CASEY STONER 1st 1'31.796 "It was actually a very difficult session. We started off well and then we switched to our number one bike with a completely different set up and that felt a lot better. On the first lap, I matched my best time I did on my second bike, then unfortunately on the second lap the engine gave up. We're not too sure what happened, if it was something electrical or if some water got in there, but we'll find out later. This put us on the back foot a little because as soon as we came back and got the tyres ready on the second bike, it started to rain hard again so we knew we wouldn't be able to get a better lap time in those conditions. We decided to wait for later in the session as we knew we wouldn't have much hope unless the conditions improved a little, and luckily they did. It ended up being a really good day for us and we'll see what we're capable of tomorrow". DANI PEDROSA 3rd 1'32.081 "I'm very happy with this qualifying session. It was difficult, especially at the beginning as it was raining very hard and we had so much water on the asphalt, it was difficult to stop the bike spinning and aquaplaning. It was crucial to be ready at the end when the rain stopped because everybody was improving their lap times and in one lap you could be first or sixth. I'm very happy because in the past in these kind of sessions we didn't get a good result. But this time, I was more confident every lap and we made it; I thought I got the pole in my last flying lap, but anyway to be at the front is key in Sachsenring. Yesterday we also had a good feeling in the dry, and it looks like we will have a dry race tomorrow, so it will be important to make the right choice on tyres and try the hard compound in the warm up to compare with the soft we tried on Friday". Qualifying Results 1 Casey Stoner 1'31.796 AUS HONDA Repsol Honda Team 2 Ben Spies 1'31.989 USA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing Team 3 Dani Pedrosa 1'32.081 SPA HONDA Repsol Honda Team 4 Cal Crutchlow 1'32.288 GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 5 Jorge Lorenzo 1'32.381 SPA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing Team 6 Stefan Bradl 1'32.510 GER HONDA LCR Honda MotoGP 7 Nicky Hayden 1'32.795 USA DUCATI Ducati Team 8 Andrea Dovizioso 1'33.205 ITA YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 9 Valentino Rossi 1'33.217 ITA DUCATI Ducati Team 10 Aleix Espargaro 1'33.900 ESP ART Aspar Team MotoGP 11 Alvaro Bautista 1'34.088 SPA HONDA San Carlo Honda Gresini 12 Hector Barbera 1'34.542 SPA DUCATI Pramac Racing 13 Colin Edwards 1'34.649 USA SUTER NGM Mobile Forward Racing 14 Randy De Puniet 1'34.651 FRA ART Aspar Team MotoGP 15 Mattia Pasini 1'34.938 ITA ART Speed Master 16 Danilo Petrucci 1'35.590 ITA IODA Ioda Racing Project 17 Michelle Pirro 1'35.595 ITA HONDA San Carlo Honda Gresini 18 Yonny Hernandez 1'35.962 COL BQR-FTR BQR 19 Ivan Silva 1'36.183 SPA BQR-FTR BQR 20 James Ellison 1'36.355 GBR ART Paul Bird Racing 21 Franco Battaini 1'36.438 ITA DUCATI Cardion AB Motoracing Circuit information First race 1961 (Modified 2003) GPs held 26 Laps 30 Race distance 110.130km / 68.430miles Track length 3.671km / 2.281miles Track width 12m Longest straight 0.780km / 0.485miles Corners 13 (10 left, 3 right) Pole position Left Sachsenring AM Sachsenring 09353 Oberlungwitz http://www.sachsenring-circuit.com Circuit records Pole position 1m21.067s (163.020Km/h) Casey Stoner (Ducati, 2008) Race lap 1m21.846s (161.469Km/h) Dani Pedrosa (Honda, 2011) Race time 41m12.482s (160.352Km/h) Dani Pedrosa (Honda, 2011) MotoGP Wins 4 (Valentino Rossi 2002, 2005-06-09) 2011 Winner Dani Pedrosa (Honda) Article source: Repsol Honda
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