DISASTROUS WET QUALIFYING FOR LORENZO LEAVES HIM LAST IN BRNO
. By Bikeland Staff
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.
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."
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