| Losail (Qatar), 19th March 2016 |
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Movistar Yamaha MotoGP riders
Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi rode on the
limit this evening during an intense 15-minute qualifying session at the Losail
International Circuit to take first and fifth respectively on the grid for
tomorrow‘s Commercial Bank Grand Prix of Qatar.
After setting the pace in FP4 with a 1‘55.301s lap, Lorenzo was the last rider to start the 15-minute qualifying shoot out. As the second to last man to leave pit lane he enjoyed some clear track space. He immediately dropped under the 1‘55 mark on his first hot run to take over the provisional pole from his teammate. Unable to improve on his next lap, he came in for a fresh set of tyres with a little more than six minutes left on the clock and had another go at a time attack only one and a half minutes later. The triple and reigning MotoGP Champion put his head down once more, but had to relinquish the hope of bettering his own time after encountering a big moment on his third flying lap. Fortunately none of his rivals was able come any closer than 0.091s to his 1'54.543s lap, giving him the first pole position of the 2016 season. Rossi was also on the charge today. Similar to his teammate, the nine-time World Champion left it late to get out on track, but needed little time to put his stamp on the proceedings. His first stint saw him briefly take provisional pole with a 1'56.024s lap. Despite improving his time on his second go, a flurry of activity pushed him back to ninth. Eager to move up the ranking order, the Doctor quickly returned to the pits and came back out on track with a little less than four and a half minutes of the session remaining. He moved up from tenth to seventh place, but knew he had more to give on his final hot lap. Squeezing out every ounce of effort on his ultimate lap, he clocked a 1'54.815s, 0.272s from pole. This time briefly put him in fourth place, before dropping one place in the qualifying standings. The Doctor will start tomorrow‘s race from the middle of the second row on the grid.
MASSIMO MEREGALLI
TEAM DIRECTOR
 Today we saw some very strong results from our
riders. Jorge did very well, setting the pole position on his second lap, on his
first tyre. Valentino‘s fifth place is fully deserved and it‘s a good position
to start tomorrow‘s race from. We were able to make another step in FP4 and it
gave us the edge over our rivals in qualifying. We can be quite satisfied with
the work we have delivered so far; the riders are comfortable with their setting
and the way how the bike is behaving, but no points will be distributed until
after tomorrow. We expect the race to be challenging with all the riders pumped
for the opening race. Yet I think we are in with a fair chance to fight for some
very good results tomorrow. We will use the warm-up to perfect the bikes‘
settings and then we finally get to start the 2016 season with hopefully a very
exciting battle. |
JORGE LORENZO
It‘s not bad to have this record for most pole
positions on the first weekend of the championship. Today it has been quite
difficult to keep calm and try not to crash, because sometimes you have a good
feeling with one rear tyre and you put in another and you have a different
feeling. This is what happened on my second try, I almost crashed on the first
lap, but luckily on my first try, my first lap was enough to keep the pole
position. I expected to be a little bit faster and that everyone would come
closer to the 1‘54.0s, but finally this 1‘54.5s was enough to be on
pole.VALENTINO ROSSI
I‘m quite satisfied, because it‘s important that we start from the top5 and
we are fifth. It‘s the ’minimum target‘, but it‘s not so bad because we are not
so far from the pole position. I lost a little bit in the second part of the
lap, I didn‘t do a perfect lap. If I had done so, I could have stayed a bit more
in front, but anyway it‘s good to start in fifth place. I‘m also quite happy
about the pace. We have to work and improve in the warm-up tomorrow, but I was
already not so bad. It looks like four or five riders are fast and have more or
less the same pace, but I‘m most worried about Marquez, because today he had the
best pace.I‘m happy and satisfied with my decision to stay with Yamaha for two more years. I thought I wanted to wait a little bit, but I spoke with Yamaha over the last few days and they were ready, so was I, and the contract was OK, so we said “why not?”. Now we can concentrate on the races
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