MotoGP: Stoner seizes Brickyard pole with new lap record

Sat 27th 2011, Indianapolis – Casey Stoner (Repsol Honda) has yet to finish on the podium in two career starts at the Indianapolis circuit but his new pole position record of 1’38.850 indicates that may soon be changing. The Australian will start from pole position for the seventh time in the 2011 season in Sunday’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix.

Casey Stoner – “I’m very happy with Pole here in Indy, the team have been doing a great job under difficult conditions this weekend, but the race is tomorrow and we will keep working right up until the last moment to try and get the set up right. Obviously without the bumps from previous years the track is performing a lot better, but the lack of consistency in the grip levels are causing issues, everyone is loosing the front and it doesn’t give you a lot of confidence, when you hit these patches the bike just seems to drop away from you. We haven’t changed too much since FP1, just a few small steps and trying to get the front tyre to work more as with such little grip, we are destroying it. For race distance we’re looking pretty good, we did more than race distance on soft front and soft rear and had good stability, we’ll wait and see what the conditions are like for tomorrow and decide from there”.

Ben Spies second in qualifying

Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing) who started from pole least year, qualified second behind Stoner with a 1’39.373, while Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) bettered his morning pace with a new bike set up by nearly one second with a best lap of 1’39.629, giving him the final spot on the front row.

Ben Spies – “It was good today, we didn’t have a fast lap in the end but we got on the front row. We did over 30 laps on a set of tyres and went quite quick at the end, still able to do 39s which is good. The last couple of laps we tried our hardest to catch Casey but with five minutes to go I think I ripped my tank spacer off that holds me back on the bike which didn’t help. I wasn’t disappointed as I knew we had a gap to fourth so we’d be on the front row. It wasn’t the perfect session and Casey was just too fast. I think the race will be different; the tyres will be pretty greasy after ten laps but my bike’s working really well on used tyres so we’ll see what happens.”

Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa held off Andrea Dovizioso to take the first spot on row two with a time of 1’39.947, the Spaniard’s time was 0.077s faster than that of his Italian team mate though a tenth slower than his earlier practice time. American Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) completes the second row after posting a time of 1’40.098.

Dani Pedrosa-“We had some issues in the session with the front tyre, I didn’t feel very comfortable with it and we couldn’t get the most from it. I was not going super fast and I lost the first row, but I’m not worried about the position. We would like to be closer to Casey [Stoner] and Ben [Spies] —they have been very fast and consistent—, so I hope to find something more tomorrow morning in the warm up to help us fight for the podium. The race will be hard because it’s very hot out there, and it will also be a big challenge for the tyres, but I hope we perform better in the race”.

Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) leads the third row, his time of 1’40.204 placed him just ahead of local favourite Nicky Hayden of the Ducati Team. The final spot on row three went to Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki), who trailed Hayden’s time by just 0.040s.

Héctor Barberá (Mapfre Aspar) was the final rider in the top ten, while Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) went down at the start of the session, rejoining the field aboard his second bike although the set up was clearly not ideal, as the nine-time World Champion finished the qualifying in fourteenth.

Valentino Rossi “We took a nice step forward this morning that we hoped to confirm in qualifying, and instead I fell right away. We really could have done without that crash, but the front closed right when I touched the brake. From there, the whole session was difficult because the second bike had a slightly different setup. I lost one pair of new tyres and I had to start with a set of used ones. I wasn’t able to get back the feeling from this morning, when the bike felt better and I could push harder. It’s really a shame because we wanted to try to start from the second row again, like at Brno, and instead we’ll have to work hard tomorrow. Anyway, we’ll give our best effort in the race because we weren’t so far off this morning.”

Héctor Barberá (Mapfre Aspar) was the final rider in the top ten, while Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) went down at the start of the session, rejoining the field aboard his second bike although the set up was clearly not ideal, as the nine-time World Champion finished the qualifying in fourteenth.

Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) and Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) both had run offs into the gravel, the two will start from eleventh and twelfth respectively on the grid.

Moto2

With 38 riders in the Moto2 field, a clear spot for a fast lap was difficult to come by and a frenetic dash in the final minutes of the qualifying session saw the top ten riders swapping leading positions until Marc Márquez took the top spot aboard his Team CatalunyaCaixa Repsol machine.

The Spaniard just held off Italian rider Simone Corsi (Ioda Racing Project) by 0.001s, setting a record breaking time of 1’44.038 to grab his fifth pole of 2011. Although he missed out on pole, it was still Corsi’s best qualifying position of his Moto2 career. Joining the front row starters for the first time this season is Andrea Iannone, whose lap of 1’44.158 aboard his Speed Master machine qualified him third.

Bradley Smith (Tech 3 Racing) heads up the second row, after posting a time of 1’44.344 on lap 18, two-tenths quicker than Thomas Lüthi (Interwetten Paddock Moto2) in fifth and three-tenths ahead of Mattia Pasini (Ioda Racing Project) who takes the final spot on row two.

Pol Espargaró (HP Tuenti Speed Up) stepped up his times by over a second to qualify seventh, he was followed by Dominique Aegerter (Technomag-CIP) and Esteve Rabat (Blusens-STX) to complete the third row, while Alex de Angelis (JiR Moto2) was the final rider in the top ten times and will start from the head of row four.

Championship leader Stefan Bradl (Viessmann Kiefer Racing) qualified down in 22nd position after a morning practice session crash appeared to affect his momentum. Kenny Noyes was the leading American in the field, placing 29th, with fellow compatriots Jake Gagne (GPTech) and JD Beach (Aeroport de Castello) in 32nd and 35th respectively.

125cc

The 125cc field hit the track under perfect weather conditions, and World Championship points leader Nico Terol (Bankia Aspar) proceeded his charge to pole with a lap 1’48.199, seventh-tenths faster than second placed starter Sandro Cortese (Intact Racing Team Germany). The 22 year-old Spaniard is the only two-time winner of this event, having celebrated victories in 2008 and 2010 in the 125 class.

Brno race winner Cortese nipped the second spot from Johann Zarco (Avant-AirAsia-Ajo) by two-hundredths of a second with a lap of 1’48.919, putting the French rider third on the starting grid for his sixth front row start of the season.

The third row is headed up by Avant-AirAsia-Ajo rider Efrén Vázquez who followed Faubel by 0.166s. Jonas Folger (Red Bull Ajo Motorsport) made a strong return to action following his missed race in Brno due to illness to land the middle spot with Sergio Gadea (Blusens by Paris Hilton Racing Team) completing row three.

Row four is comprised of Alexis Masbou (Caretta Technology Forward Team), Miguel Oliveira (Team Andalucía Banca Cívica) and Czech rider Jakub Kornfeil (Ongetta-Centro Seta). Podium finished from Brno, Alberto Moncayo (Team Andalucía Banca Cívica), did not participate in the qualifying practice after being declared unfit to race due to collarbone fracture sustained in the morning practice session.