Dominant Double Front Row for Movistar Yamaha MotoGP in Valencia

2016-11-12 14:46
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Jorge Lorenzo continued to dominate proceedings at the Circuito de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo during a thrilling qualifying session. The home hero gave a magical performance dropping multiple 1‘29s laps to take a convincing pole position, his fourth of the season. Valentino Rossi made today‘s two free practice sessions count to prepare his YZR-M1 for a strong time attack in Qualifying Two and took third on the grid for tomorrow‘s Gran Premio de la Comunitat Valenciana.

Lorenzo was on good form in front of the Spanish crowd during the Free Practice sessions and gave another blistering performance later in the afternoon. He was one of the first riders to leave pit lane and didn‘t waste any time to drop a time of 1‘29.849s, a new pole position record, on his first attempt to put his name at the top of the provisional leader board.

Having set the benchmark high he immediately returned to the pit box with ten minutes remaining. He quickly went out on track again and duplicated his stellar effort and set a 1‘29.613s before making a second stop. He quickly dashed off again with over three minutes left to defend his number one spot. Flashing red through all the sectors, the Mallorcan signed off his impressive qualifying efforts with a 1‘29.401s, leaving a 0.340s gap to his closest rival.

Teammate Rossi also brought his a-game to this afternoon‘s sunny qualifying session, to the delight of the local fans, with an impressive last-minute time attack. Avoiding traffic, he headed out as one of the last riders, giving him enough clear space on track. He gradually built up his pace, shooting up from eighth to fourth on his second lap, before setting a 1‘30.539s for third place.

With a provisional front row in his grasp he returned to the pits and there were four minutes remaining when he rejoined the session. Having been pushed back to seventh, the Doctor had to dig deep to reclaim third place on his next try. He further bettered his time to 1'30.128s, 0.727s from pole, on lap eight and secured third place to wrap up the last qualifying session of the year securing the seventh double front row of the 2016 season for the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team.



The extended imagery from today's Qualifying session at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit is available on
www.yamahamotogp.com
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MASSIMO MEREGALLI

MASSIMO MEREGALLI
TEAM DIRECTOR


What a pole position! Jorge has been really fast from the beginning of the first day, but what he showed during qualifying has been impressive, setting a 1‘29.401s! Vale also managed all the difficulties he met during the previous sessions very well with a good 1‘30.128s, which gave him an important front row start. Although we did a superb job today, we still have doubts for tomorrow‘s race, mainly about the rear tyre life. It will be fundamental to find an appropriate set-up that will allow them to manage the degradation of it during the 30 laps. We expect a long and tough race amongst four or five riders, but we are confident that we can fight for a top result and secure the Team‘s Title.






JORGE LORENZO

JORGE LORENZO


My motivation was full on, because I wanted to get the best challenge for pole position, but tomorrow is going to be the most important because that decides the victory, which for sure will be very hard to get it. At least I can say that in the last race with Yamaha I got pole position and I think that today I was inspired. This 1‘29.8s I already expected and I did it, but not only that, I improved the lap time without a new tyre. I did everything I could and risked in braking. It was a great day and an inspiring moment and I‘m very proud and very happy.






VALENTINO ROSSI

VALENTINO ROSSI


At this track Jorge and Marc are very strong and I‘m very happy about this front row because usually I struggle always at Valencia and during the practices, from yesterday to today, we had a lot of problems. We weren‘t fast enough but we improved and I think I did a quite good lap, but they are still a bit faster. Depending very much on the pace, I hope to be strong enough to be able to fight for the podium.

Source: Yamaha Motor Racing

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