 Jorge Lorenzo stole pole position for the Laguna Seca U.S. Grand Prix from Casey Stoner in last minutes of qualifying session, when it seemed that Casey Stoner will take his first pole position after Qatar. Casey Stoner was re-delegated to second spot on the grid this way, while constantly fast Andrea Dovizioso secured 3rd position on the grid. Dani Pedrosa will start from 4th position on the grid, while Ben Spies utilized advantage of the home track to take 5th spot on the grid. Valentino Rossi, struggling with injuries, managed to get last position in second row.
American duo of Nicky Hayden and Colin Edwards occupied 7th and 8th place on the grid, with Marco Simoncelli completing 3rd row. Hector Barbera completed top 10 qualifiers in Laguna Seca. Complete results of the qualifying may be found here.
Front row rider claims:
Jorge Lorenzo - pole position
Pole position isn't the race but it does help so I'm really happy to have got this fifth pole. Everyone is working very well and this shows it once again. I didn't think it would be possible today because Casey was so fast but I decided to give it a try and pushed as hard as I could and here we are! I don't know what to expect tomorrow, it will be a hard race for sure because Dani and Casey are very strong, but we will do the best we can to fight to the end and at least make the podium. I'm excited because it's always a special race here with a great atmosphere.
Casey Stoner - 2nd:
We’re closer to the front than last week but we still need to improve the bike before tomorrow. I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t make full use of the session this afternoon and ended up going back to the setting we had this morning. We tried a few different things that weren’t really working and unfortunately one of the settings took a long time to change so we wasted time there. To be honest I was happy to post the time I did - I thought we could have gone a bit quicker today considering how good the bike felt from yesterday to this morning but we just didn’t take that extra step. Hopefully we can take it in the warm-up and have our most competitive race of the season tomorrow.
Andrea Dovizioso - 3rd:
I’m very happy about this session because this is my first front row of the season and qualifying was an area that we had to improve. We were fast from the beginning today and I have to thank the team because they’ve done a good job this weekend. Yesterday and also today I have been losing some time in T4, but for the final qualifying lap I pushed at 100 per cent and did my best final sector time - which gave me my fastest lap time and a place on the front row. I have a good race pace but we still need to improve a little because Stoner and Lorenzo are very fast. There is still a gap but we are not too far away. I think the race pace tomorrow will be between the high 1m 21s and 1m 22 dead, and I’m confident I can fight with the others. Plus, starting from first row makes this easier. For the tyre choice we will probably go with the soft option rear. Our machine balance is good and we have a positive feeling on this track so I’m confident for tomorrow.
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