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2008-04-12 Rider claims after Estoril qualifying
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 Jorge Lorenzo once again today took all attention by setting pace in Estoril Qualifying, putting his rivals into the shadow in his third MotoGP race. However, Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi are both on pace, promising once again great fight for top positions. Read rider impressions after qualifying in Estoril.
Jorge Lorenzo - pole positon - 1:35.715, 26 laps:
Each pole position has felt like a dream and I can’t believe I am here again! I am very proud to have a record like this and in fact I’m especially happy to have qualified in front here because this track has always been quite difficult for me and I’ve never been on pole at it before. Our race pace is quite good and now the aim for tomorrow will be to make the most of my starting position, stay at the front and hopefully fight for the win. It’s going to be a hard race and there are many strong riders, but I am looking forward to it. Our aim is to try to win but if that’s not possible then the podium will be okay; it’s still only my third race and I am still learning all the time! Anyway, I feel good on my bike and tyres, the team have done a great job and now we just have to cross our fingers for good weather tomorrow!
Dani Pedrosa - 2nd - 1:35.948:
Our target was always to start from the front row and we achieved it. Our race pace was good today, but we still want to try and improve the bike a little bit more, working on the chassis settings. Also, we haven’t chosen which tyres we will use tomorrow because the weather conditions are so changeable here, so we will have wait a bit more. The big question is what the weather will do tomorrow afternoon. I’m looking forward to the race. I expect it to be very close at the front tomorrow because there’s a lot of riders going fast here, for sure it’s going to be tough.
Valentino Rossi - 3rd - 1:36.199, 27 laps:
I’m really happy! It’s very important to be on the first row here and now we can think about trying to win tomorrow. We’ve made some big steps forward with Bridgestone and considering that every time we use the qualifying tyre it’s still a bit like a test, it’s a great achievement to be here. Today my bike and tyres worked very well and I felt confident and strong. We have a good setting and I can ride how I want to, which is great fun as well! Now I really hope that we can have a good race tomorrow. The weather is a worry and we will have to wait until last thing to make our final tyre choice, but we have some good ideas. Lorenzo and Pedrosa are looking very strong but I think we are not so far and we have a chance to be there tomorrow. There is a great atmosphere in our box and everyone is looking forward to tomorrow’s challenge.
Nicky Hayden - 4th - 1:36.266:
We’re right there, but just missing that last little bit. Everything went relatively smooth today, though I definitely thought we were capable of being on the front row – bike, tyres, even the rider – but we just didn’t get it done. Race pace I don’t think we’re a long way off but definitely we could do with a bit more. The Michelin tyres are working well, the bike’s good, we just need to get it better in the slow changes of direction. My ideal time had me third. On one of my fast laps I had to follow Toseland, when he wasn’t on a fast lap, through turn five and into six, which kinda ruined that lap. At the time I was pretty fired up about it. He was man enough to come and apologise, but at the time I didn’t want to hear sorry.
Colin Edwards - 5th - 1:36.289, 24 laps:
My first qualifier was decent and my second and third felt better. But on my last tyre I made a couple of little mistakes and that costs you a lot of time. I was pushing extra hard knowing I’d lost time and just ended up making another mistake trying to claw it back. But I was less than a tenth off the front row and while it would have been good to keep that record going I’m still happy, especially for Yamaha. To have four of us in the top six is how it should be when you don’t have chatter, you have a chassis with feel and confidence from the front. And now we’ve got the new engine too I can’t wait for the race. I’ve gone for a bit of a different tactic with Michelin this weekend for the new motor and thanks to them because it is working. I’ve gone for outright traction more than momentum to carry lots of corner speed. I’m not so worried about being the fastest guy mid-corner now because it was no good when somebody in front of me was acting like a roadblock. Now I’ve concentrated on corner entry, getting the bike turned and getting the power to the ground on the exit to use that extra performance from the motor. I’m still doing better lap times with that tyre so it is obviously working.
James Toseland - 6th - 1:36.790, 21 laps:
I’m a second off pole and still sixth which just shows how fast the boys at the front are going because normally a second covers all of us. I’m really pleased to get on the second row and it is a massive boost for me knowing I can come to a track I’ve never even seen before and be competitive near the front. Considering the first session was damp, and I crashed at the start of the second session, with the track time I have had a second row start is a great effort from the team. I had a small problem with my first qualifier on the left side but the other two worked really well and thanks to Michelin for that. I just made a few small mistakes because to go two seconds quicker on the qualifying tyres on a track I don’t know is a big ask. Everything happens so much faster and I was braking too late and approaching the entry too fast. Against these guys you can’t afford to make a mistake. I’m looking forward to the race with the new engine. It is a big improvement and if I had the old engine here, coming off the last corner would have been difficult. It wouldn’t have mattered how hard I worked on the rest of the lap, I’d have been passed on the straight. But coming out now in third gear I can feel how much power the new engine has got. Today also showed what a great job Yamaha has done with four of us in the top six.
Andrea Dovizioso - 7th - 1:36.998:
Compared to yesterday in both the morning and afternoon sessions we improved the pace for the race and this is positive. The confidence I have at this track and the familiarity with the layout helps me in any case better understand my RC212V. Of course this bike demands a totally different riding style compared to a 250. I worked with the team to produce some good results today with the electronic management system so that will help us to be competitive. We have a good handling package in the lower part of the track, but you have to have a much more delicate approach to it, thanks to the high-power output of my Honda bike. We may make some final changes to the setting in warm-up tomorrow and then we will be ready for the race.
Randy de Puniet - 8th - 1:37.223:
It’s been pretty hard today because this morning I crashed and the guys had to work hard to prepare the bike for this afternoon’s session. I want to thank them for their great job. My feeling on race tyres in the morning free session was OK both on the front and the rear and I was confident to improve my pace in the qualifying session. We had a minor technical issue and I was not able to get the same rhythm after that. I spent more track time to fix the problem but I’m not very satisfied. Anyway we will make some adjustments in tomorrow’s warm up session and we will see how the bike reacts.”
Casey Stoner - 9th - 1:37.253:
We were struggling a little bit for confidence coming here after the problems we had at Jerez and even though I was expecting a better performance at this track we've found similar difficulties. We're really struggling for a set-up and I don't think there's much more we can get out of the bike here. Even so, we need to look ahead to the warm-up tomorrow to try and find a better solution in a way that will let me fight in the race. Things went so smoothly for us last year that it would be easy to get frustrated with our current situation but they way out of it is to stay calm and have belief in each other. I know I've got a great team and a great factory behind me, so we'll keep working together until we turn things around. Basically we need to sleep on what's happened over the last two days and head into tomorrow's warm-up in a positive and productive manner.
John Hopkins – 10th – 1:37.346:
Today we finalised our tyre choice for the race and found a durable combination, so I'm confident we have a good set-up. We will run the new specification chassis we tried for the first time yesterday, as this has given us more traction on a race tyre. The qualifying tyres lacked a bit of grip, and I made a few mistakes, which unfortunately put us on the fourth row. We've given ourselves quite a bit of work to do with the grid position we have but, if I can get a good start, we are capable of a good result.
Shinya Nakano - 11th - 1:37.664:
Yesterday was good even in the wet and changing conditions. Today was not so good I am having a lot of problems with traction and getting the bike to turn. We have tried many things today with chassis and suspension but we are still not 100%. We have a few little adjustments to try in the warm up but the biggest problem is the temperature we need higher track temperatures to get the tyres to work. But my confidence grows with this bike at every race.
Loris Capirossi - 12th - 1:37.786:
We have to think about tomorrow, because for us the qualifying was pretty bad - I tried a bit too hard on my first tyre and I crashed! I am very happy about the race rhythm, we tried to find a good setting and the best tyre for the race and for sure the whole package now seems really good. I am very happy with where we are on race tyres and I will need to get a good start and try to out-brake a few people into the first corner. We worked really hard today and found many good things and we now have to take that into tomorrow. It is not the best thing being so far back on the grid, but I am 100% optimistic for a good result – maybe more so than I was at Jerez!”
Chris Vermeulen - 13th - 1:37.843:
It was a very disappointing qualifying session and again we really struggled to get the extra bit of grip and time out of the qualifying tyres. There didn’t seem to be any more grip from the qualifiers than there was from the race tyres! It is quite difficult when the race times are so close because we are now starting so far back that it will all be down to the start and getting away well. I have got quite good tyres for the race, they are a pretty hard compound but they work very well and I can do low 38s, high 37s on them, so hopefully that will be quick enough tomorrow to get me into the front group.
Toni Elias – 14th - 1:38.561, 22 laps:
I can’t be happy of the position with have conquered. Fourteenth position isn’t our objective. We have to accept the situation, but we can’t do worst than this in the classification. This is a track that highlights the problems we have, therefore is not easy. I am not looking at the fact that I am the second best Ducati rider on the starting grid: I prefer to exclusively concentrate on my work to improve. Tomorrow I will give the best possible to gain as many points as I can.
Anthony West - 15th – 1:38.775:
I'm frustrated that we were unable to make any more of an impression today and the grid position isn't where I had hoped we would be. We still have a lot of improvements to make in order to obtain the lap times we want and we've been working hard to achieve this. However, tomorrow is race day and I'm determined to get away from the start to fight for as many points as possible.
Alex De Angelis - 16th - 1:38.823:
I felt a lot better today after I had treatment at the Clinica Mobile. My temperature was down to 38 degrees and I could breath more easily, that makes riding much more comfortable. Feeling the way I did yesterday it was not easy and I was very slow. Today I had a lot of problems with rear-end grip -– every time I got on the gas the rear end slid around quite badly and I couldn’t get good drive off the corners. Down the front straight I’m second slowest. Under heavy braking the bike is very stable and I can enter the corners fast enough. Tomorrow I will have an IV drip at the Clinica and I’m sure I’ll be OK.
Marco Melandri - 17th - 1:39.115:
I didn't exactly expect to be running at the front but I was hoping for better than this. I've had problems from the start and so far we've not been able to resolve them. It seems we need more time to change this so the situation remains the same - I can't ride as I want to and I don't have good control of the bike. It is not easy to work out where the problem is coming from and that's why we still haven't worked out how to solve it. It is not time to lie down but to keep working hard for a solution.
Sylvain Guintoli – 18th - 1:39.355, 21 laps:
This morning we had a good rhythm. Then in the afternoon I slipped after only a few laps and I had to work with the second bike. I lost the rear part of the bike and in the fall I slightly twisted my ankle. Luckily it’s nothing serious and some ice should let me be able to ride in tomorrow’s race.
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