MotoGP Qualifying Practice Classification at Jerez

Pedrosa the poleman after superb qualifying session

Saturday, 01 May 2010

A highly exciting qualifying at Jerez saw Dani Pedrosa set the fastest lap to secure pole position for Sunday’s Gran Premio bwin de España, with Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner also on the front row. Valentino Rossi will start Sunday’s race from fourth.

Jerez 2010 - MotoGP - QP - highlights

Dani Pedrosa went fastest a thrilling qualifying session to take pole position for the Gran Premio bwin de España at Jerez, as his time of 1’39.202 led a MotoGP field in which the top ten riders were separated by less than 0.9s.

The Repsol Honda rider’s 23rd of 25 laps on board his factory RC212V placed him at the head of the grid and sent the Spanish crowd into enthusiastic raptures, with the front row completed by fellow Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo (Fiat Yamaha) and Ducati Marlboro rider Casey Stoner.

Fiat Yamaha’s Lorenzo had led the session for a period but his best time was eventually 0.285s off the pace of Pedrosa, with Stoner a further two-hundredths down the timesheet as he secured third spot.

World Champion Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) rode the fourth best time to lead the second row, and Nicky Hayden (Ducati Marlboro) bounced back from a big crash in Free Practice 2 to qualify in fifth position, just two-thousandths behind Rossi. LCR Honda rider Randy de Puniet completed the second row, as the top six all finished within 0.4s of one another.

Monster Yamaha Tech3 duo Colin Edwards and Ben Spies set the seventh and eighth quickest times respectively, with Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) and Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) also inside the tightly packed top ten.

The only fall of the session was for Aleix Espargaró (Pramac Racing) with 20 minutes remaining, and the Spaniard was fine to continue his qualifying.

MotoGP Qualifying Practice Classification

Jerez de la Frontera, Saturday, May 01, 2010

Pos.	Num.	Rider	Nation	Team	Bike	Km/h	Time	Gap 1st/Prev.
1	26	Dani PEDROSA	SPA	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	278.8	1'39.202
2	99	Jorge LORENZO	SPA	Fiat Yamaha Team	Yamaha	277.2	1'39.487	0.285 / 0.285
3	27	Casey STONER	AUS	Ducati Marlboro Team	Ducati	276.6	1'39.511	0.309 / 0.024
4	46	Valentino ROSSI	ITA	Fiat Yamaha Team	Yamaha	276.8	1'39.558	0.356 / 0.047
5	69	Nicky HAYDEN	USA	Ducati Marlboro Team	Ducati	280.2	1'39.560	0.358 / 0.002
6	14	Randy DE PUNIET	FRA	LCR Honda MotoGP	Honda	276.2	1'39.591	0.389 / 0.031
7	5	Colin EDWARDS	USA	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	Yamaha	277.0	1'39.970	0.768 / 0.379
8	11	Ben SPIES	USA	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	Yamaha	280.3	1'39.989	0.787 / 0.019
9	4	Andrea DOVIZIOSO	ITA	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	277.5	1'40.021	0.819 / 0.032
10	33	Marco MELANDRI	ITA	San Carlo Honda Gresini	Honda	281.0	1'40.027	0.825 / 0.006
11	65	Loris CAPIROSSI	ITA	Rizla Suzuki MotoGP	Suzuki	275.6	1'40.206	1.004 / 0.179
12	7	Hiroshi AOYAMA	JPN	Interwetten Honda MotoGP	Honda	275.8	1'40.322	1.120 / 0.116
13	19	Alvaro BAUTISTA	SPA	Rizla Suzuki MotoGP	Suzuki	278.1	1'40.416	1.214 / 0.094
14	40	Hector BARBERA	SPA	Paginas Amarillas Aspar	Ducati	275.7	1'40.482	1.280 / 0.066
15	41	Aleix ESPARGARO	SPA	Pramac Racing Team	Ducati	271.0	1'40.555	1.353 / 0.073
16	58	Marco SIMONCELLI	ITA	San Carlo Honda Gresini	Honda	273.4	1'40.586	1.384 / 0.031
17	36	Mika KALLIO	FIN	Pramac Racing Team	Ducati	277.7	1'40.803	1.601 / 0.217