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2007-09-01 Rider claims after Misano qualifying
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 Today was busy day for riders at Misano circuit, having extended free practice session and one-hour qualifying session to set their machines for tomorrow's race. As usually, Stoner was man in charge, with Rossi trailing young Australian. Read impressions of riders after second day at Misano.
Casey Stoner - pole position, 1:33.918
We haven't turned all my poles so far this year into wins. I'd like to think we could do that tomorrow but I think it's going to be a very hard race - nobody's really got the ideal setting because we've all had only a small amount of time and experience on this track. Also, yesterday's rain forced the cancellation of the afternoon session, with an extra hour added on to this morning's session, so everything's been a bit messed up. Anyway, we are pretty happy with the settings we have at the moment - we were fast this morning when we did race distance on our softest compound race tyres and everything is looking pretty good for the race. But we'll just have to wait and see, because I'm not really sure about everyone else's situation.
Valentino Rossi - 2nd:
The atmosphere today was unbelievable, there are so many fans and so much yellow around the circuit; it was really important for me to make a good result like this. I rode at the maximum today and I'm very happy with the result. It's been a long time without a front-row start, since Donington, and it's a big relief to be back here again. I like this track a lot so far, it's technical and has some really good parts, it's not too tight and it's possible to have fun. There are some bumps but it's not disastrous and it seems to suit our bike well. Our Michelin tyres are working well here and I can ride the bike how I want to again. It was also very good with the qualifying tyre. Casey is very fast once again and we know that it's going to be very hard tomorrow, but starting from the front is going to make things much easier and now I am looking forward to a fun race.
Nicky Hayden - 3rd
I’m happy we squeezed onto the front row, which obviously is really important around here because it’s a tight track. Tomorrow’s race is going to be a bit of an unknown for us and there are a couple of race tyre options I haven’t even tried yet. I quite like the track and I got up to speed pretty quickly this morning, though when it came to doing 1m 35s and 1m 34s laps I haven’t been able to make that next step. We struggled a bit in the afternoon with the first qualifying tyre and so on the second one I knew that, man, I had to reach down and take a few chances to pull something out. I had a lot of chatter on that lap but the qualifying Michelin tyres were really good. I know those guys have been working hard and it hasn’t been easy on them this season so I appreciate the effort they’ve put in. Hopefully my crew can tweak on the machine settings tonight and we can get things a little bit better. There are parts of the track where I’m ok and a few where it’s not so good – but I’ve got a lot of faith in my boys and hopefully we can be up there at the front fighting tomorrow. I’m sure it’s going to be a good show – the atmosphere here is unbelievable – and I need to be a part of it.
Randy de Puniet - 4th:
Fourth is not so bad but I think I could have been on the front row, all things considered. On the last lap, I made a small mistake in turn three, and lost some tenths, and that's why I'm on the second row. However, in practice I was going very fast on race tyres so I feel like we've got an exceptional set up for tomorrow. The bike and the Bridgestones are working brilliantly and I think we're in with a strong chance of doing well.
John Hopkins - 5th:
We managed to cram a lot of work in to one day today. Unfortunately with the two hours back-to-back we didn’t really have a lot of opportunities to make many big set-up changes, which we would probably have done if the time had been spaced out more. We did make a few alterations and we changed two gearboxes during this morning’s session! I think we have made the most of the time we’ve had and my crew has done a great job. This afternoon we worked with Bridgestone to get the best tyre solution out of my allocation for tomorrow’s race and we still have a couple of things to try in the warm-up in the morning. On the qualifiers I turned my brain off for a bit and went wide and lost some time, but as a whole the bike felt really good and so did the Bridgestone tyres. We’ve made a few good starts from the second row so we’ve just got to do that, hang it out at the front and go for that podium!
Dani Pedrosa - 6th:
Well the second row is not so bad, though I have to say I was expecting even more from this qualifying session. We haven’t found the ideal race set-up and tyre choice yet and this means tomorrow’s warm-up is going to be crucial to give us a chance for the race. At the moment my pace and rhythm on race tyres is not really where it needs to be. The track is very bumpy in parts and this is giving us some stability issues which as yet we haven’t been able to overcome. We’ll look at the data from today and try to come up with a solution quickly in the warm-up. Starting from 6th on the grid is not perfect because the first part of the lap here is very tight and twisty, which means overtaking and making up places in the first laps will be difficult. Still, we’ll give it our best shot. This is an important race as we go into the last part of the season, so I’m determined to fight for the best result here.
Carlos Checa - 7th:
Overall I’m happy considering the problem on my first qualifying tyre when I had no engine braking or traction control because of a faulty front wheel speed sensor. The rear wheel was just locking-up on the brakes. It’s a pity because on my second qualifying run I finished only 0.2s off the front row. In the morning we did a lot of good work on the set-up with race tyres and I’m happy with the lap times even though the track is very bumpy in some areas. But now there is no time left so we will see what happens tomorrow, it will be an interesting race this track.
Chris Vermeulen - 8th:
It was the first dry time out on the track today and it was all new for everybody. We had a longer session this morning to make up for yesterday and the team did a great job on the bike to get it ready. Bridgestone has also done an awesome job in getting the tyres right for here without any data whatsoever - they are working really well. This afternoon we made some changes with the gearbox and suspension and it felt a lot better. I was more comfortable with the circuit and I feel that my race tyre times are very consistent and quite easy to do. On the qualifiers it was going well but a rider in front didn’t see me and slowed me up a bit. Third row is not ideal especially as it will be quite hard to pass around here, so I’ll have to sharpen up my elbows and go for it from the off and hopefully get a good result.
Colin Edwards - 9th:
This morning wasn't too bad. We made some changes to the bike and got it going pretty well this morning; it wasn't easy but we were going reasonably well and I was feeling pretty happy. We planned this afternoon to make a few tweaks to suit the track as it warmed up and at the beginning we stuck in a hard race tyre and went from there. Unfortunately though things didn't go exactly to plan; the bike felt quite different and I felt like I couldn't really get out of my own way! So then we changed back towards this morning's setting and that felt a lot better. With the qualifying tyre I dropped nearly a second but unfortunately it really wasn't enough today and I felt like I had some side-grip issues that meant I was lacking a bit of confidence to get in deep. If I had just listened to my wife today - braked a little deeper and got on the gas a little earlier - then I guess I would have found the missing three tenths!
Anthony West - 10th:
I didn't manage to go as fast as I'd have liked, and it's not as good as the third position this morning, but I feel there's definitely some improvement after Brno. This morning, everything went smoothly, no problems, but this afternoon I didn't manage quite the same times with the race tyres. I think maybe the rise in temperature made them work differently. Things were a lot better with the qualifying tyres this time round though, and the bike ran a lot smoother, but I still wasn't as quick as I'd like. No worries for the race though: I think we should be okay. I reckon I'll be able to fight far better, I usually do in the race itself, so I think I can improve on tenth.
Marco Melandri - 12th:
Its like a dream to be able to be back on track after the terrible accident of this morning I made a mistake this morning when the track conditions were not very good. The bike went onto the kerb and then the artificial grass. The bike flew over the tyre wall and I was lucky to slide I had a big bang on lumber region but saving my neck after the x-ray that excluded any fractures I could get back on track for the last 20-minutes. My race rhythm is not so bad but I didn’t find a good feeling with the qualifying tyres here not so much time in total to prepare the bike but anyway I will do my best in the race even if I now demanding.
Loris Capirossi - 13th
It's not been a very positive day for us, we've really struggled to find a good set-up. I'm having a lot of problems with turning - the bike doesn't turn the way I want it to turn and when I force it the front tucks and I risk crashing. This is a big problem at this track because there are a lot of corners that turn back on themselves. We are also working on the engine because it feels very aggressive but it's difficult to set up. We haven't had so much time on this track and that doesn't help either. Tyres are not a problem, we have a good front and a good rear. We've chosen hard compounds. Anyway, we will use morning warm-up as another test session, even if it's quite short. We will try some other changes and we'll see what happens. If we can better my pace by four or five tenths I can hope to have a good race.
Shinya Nakano - 14th:
Today was much drier! Yesterday we had such terrible weather, so thankfully the conditions were much better today. This morning our problem was that we couldn’t get a good feeling from the bike. Maybe it was due to the track conditions and also the settings. We improved a little bit this afternoon, but we are still looking for more braking stability and rear traction overall. Having had some time on the track, I enjoy it a lot, but it’s harder to learn than some tracks, thanks to the combination of low and high-speed corners. We may try a different front setting tomorrow to get more confidence under braking. I will need a good start tomorrow as at Misano it’s not easy to overtake as it is a high-speed but narrow track.
Toni Elias - 15th:
My physical condition is better than at Brno but this weekend I’m struggling more than at the last GP. My leg is very bad because of the frequent changes of direction here at Misano and from the strong braking. Tomorrow I will try and spare some energy in order to finish the race and with a better result than at Brno.
Alex Barros - 17th:
Obviously, I am very dissatisfied with my place on the grid, but I know that with the race tire I can get into a good rhythm. Starting from this far back, it doesn’t bode well for the race, but I’m committed to getting as good a result as I can, because the I know that the team, the bike, and my skills are much better than 19th.
Kurtis Roberts - 18th:
I think we’re close on race tyres, and there’ll be some guys to race with, but I was only three tenths faster on qualifying tyres. Until three races back, every time we used a qualifier it’d chatter off the race track. In Germany was the first time it didn’t, and we picked up a second and a half. Today the thing was hopping off the race-track again – not chattering, just hitting some bumps and taking off. With this track, it needs to accelerate out of the slow corners onto the straightaway. We’re struggling to get from point A to point B as fast as we need to, and there’s nothing within the team we can do to help that. But we’re getting better. It’s hard to make leaps and bounds at a race weekend, but we had one test day after Brno, and that helped. For the race, things are looking better. We were faster than Elias the whole session, and I think we’ll be right there with Nakano and Tamada. Overtaking will be difficult here, especially without a speed advantage, but if we get a good start I’m hoping for a good result. I think we can get some more out of the bike, set-up wise.
Alex Hofmann - 19th:
I am happy to be racing again after the serious accident that I suffered in Laguna Seca. It is normal that after several weeks of inactivity and an intense rehabilitation of my hand, that I would tire after a few laps. Tomorrow I expect to improve my result in the race because the race tire behaves better for me than the qualification tire.
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