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Colin Edwards 2006 Yamaha YZR-M1 
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Troy Bayliss Ducati 999 F06 
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Ducati Corse T-Shirt 
Top quality new long sleeved T-Shirt from the Ducati Corse team. 100 cotton with a striking 3 way panelled colour scheme. Ideal for under your leathers, or just for wearing around town!
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2008-05-03 Rider impressions after Shanghai qualifying
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 This time at Shanghai we haven't seen domination of young guns, despite the fact that 4th place of injured Lorenzo was as impressive as pole position. However, Yamaha resumes it's strong qualifying string, with Colin Edwards once more taking high grid position and still having to defend it in the race, which he was unable so far. Rossi, Stoner and Pedrosa seem to be on the competitive edge again, and we may expect tough race tomorrow. Read rider thoughts after Shanghai qualifying.
Colin Edwards - pole position - 1:58.139, 21 laps
I’ve got to say big thanks to my team, Yamaha and Michelin. I struggled yesterday but today it really came good. My guys and the Japanese got together last night and they came up with a set-up scenario to get the bike working which is completely foreign to what I’ve been riding. I haven’t used this set-up in all my time at Yamaha, but based on the problems I was describing they suggested a plan and when I was thinking about it I was like ‘do what’? We were just looking for more traction because I struggled so badly in that area yesterday. We made a big change to the bike to get some weight on the rear and it worked. It was a great team effort and it definitely worked because when I went out this morning I was a second faster instantly. And it felt easy because I had no issues from the front like yesterday and my comfort level went up from 50 per cent to 95 per cent. My first two qualifiers weren’t bad but it felt like I was playing a computer game when the shadow passes you and you are always trying to catch that shadow. It felt like that I could see where I wanted to be but I just wasn’t hammering the throttle. So for the last tyre I went into turn one and knew I just had to get in deep enough and I really hammered it round the first two corners. I was 0.3s up just in that one section. From there I rode a good lap but I didn’t have any real moments. It was weird because I didn’t really have to take any risks like normal to do that time. |Everything was pretty calm and collected and the Michelin qualifier is awesome. It is going to be at tough race. I haven’t done a 59 yet on a race tyre and Casey and Valentino look to be doing consistent 59. I just got to get a good start and hang in there.
Valentino Rossi - 2nd - 1:58.494, 23 laps:
I’m quite happy with this position; third in Estoril, second here... Hopefully one better next time! I’ve been fast here since Friday morning and we’ve worked so hard with the team and with Bridgestone lately to improve the situation with the qualifying tyre, so we definitely deserve to be here. Today I had fun and I was able to fight with my rivals, plus I really enjoyed having the chance to ride at the maximum around this track. When I saw 58.5 on the clock I thought that I had a chance to try for the pole, but then Colin did 58.1 and this was a bit too much for us! Anyway it’s very important to be on the front row, especially because we don’t know whether it will rain or not. Thanks to my mechanics for doing a great job, and now we’ve just got to hope the rain stays away!
Casey Stoner - 3rd - 1:58.591:
First of all I want to say a big thank you to the team. We had a great result in Qatar and we knew Jerez and Estoril would be tough but we didn't realise how tough. Despite that nobody lost their head, everybody has stayed calm and together and this is the sign of a great team. It has meant that we have been able to come here with a clear focus, without panicking and making drastic changes to the bike. We found a good base setting for this track yesterday, with much improved front feeling, and today we were able to work on finding better grip on the rear. It's still not perfect but the lap times are good and it feels great to know we're competitive again. Also, I want to say thanks to Bridgestone because they came up with a really competitive qualifying tyre and it allowed us to get on the front row for the first time this season. We're all waiting to see what the weather will do but I won here in the wet in 250 back in2005 and I won in the dry last year in MotoGP so we certainly have nothing to fear.
Jorge Lorenzo - 4th - 1:58.711, 21 laps:
The way I felt yesterday, I couldn’t even imagine a result like this today. In fact it was all I could do to believe that I would be able to ride at all. This result is amazing for me, as good as my other pole positions, and it’s given me a lot of confidence despite the pain. Now I have to take care and tomorrow I will just try to do the best I can; who knows what can happen in the race? I have a lot of pain in both feet and ankles and it’s difficult to change down with the left and to change direction with the right, but I showed I am able to do it. Yesterday’s crash was big, probably the biggest of my career, but I think I was actually quite lucky not to have worse injuries. The doctors at the clinic are working very hard to help me and now I will go back there for more treatment. Hopefully I will be fee ling better again tomorrow and we will do what we can, rain or shine!
Dani Pedrosa - 5th - 1:58.855:
We improved from the morning to the afternoon session and were lapping at a good pace on race tyres but unfortunately we couldn’t improve as much as we usually do with qualifying tyres, it seemed like we lacked a bit of grip. I don’t know why, but a lot of riders crashed during this afternoon’s qualifying session. All things considered, starting from the second row is not so bad. If it’s dry we will have to improve a little bit more. But I hope we will be able to have a dry race because according to the latest weather forecasts it may rain tomorrow. In that case we will only have 20 minutes to prepare the settings for the wet.
Loris Capirossi - 6th - 1:58.941:
I am quite happy today because this is the first time that we have had a good qualifying. We have worked hard to get the bike’s settings right and it is now working well on race tyres. We still have a couple of options for which tyres to use tomorrow and we will decide on that in the morning. The qualifying and race tyres worked well and we have a good rhythm with the race package, and it will be good to start nearer the front. We will see what happens tomorrow as the forecast says rain which will be awful after all the hard work we have put in. Our target remains the same, which is to win races and get podiums, I know that will be hard here, but we will certainly be pushing for it!
James Toseland - 7th - 1:59.254, 19 laps
I’ve had to dig deep this weekend because this is a much tougher track to master than Portugal. It is tough learning it on race tyres so to then throw the qualifiers in with the extra grip it almost makes it a completely new track again because you’ve got to go so much faster. On my first tyre I was out on my second bike and we’d changed the clutch and I had a problem with the gear shifter. I went out on my first bike on the second tyre and pinned it out of the double left and had a really big moment. My feet came off the pegs and I bit the screen so that was the end of that lap too. I only had one tyre really to make a time but without the experience of knowing how hard to push with the first two, I wasn’t really up to speed. I went out on the last tyre and braked a bit early for one corner and ran a bit wide at another but these things are going to happen on a brand new track. I was fifth when I did my best lap but unfortunately I just dropped off the second row. That can happen though when you don’t know the track so well against this class of field. I’m confident for tomorrow rain or shine but congratulations to Colin and the team. He did a great job and its good for me to see Colin performing like that because it shows what the package is capable of. That’s why I can’t wait to get to some tracks I know.
Chris Vermeulen - 8th - 1:59.325:
Things have been a lot better today. The tests after the last few events have really paid off and Bridgestone has helped out and brought us some new rubber that is a lot more competitive – so I am really thankful to them for that. My crew have worked really hard this week and we have had to overcome some major issues in some of the sessions - the guys have worked their hearts out! It has definitely paid off as we were consistently inside the top-five during the qualifying session on race tyres, and on the qualifiers it is a lot better to be right up there. It will still be hard work from the third row, but Suzuki had a good result here last year and we know we can be competitive. I’m looking forward to the race and I’ll certainly be giving it my best!
Randy De Puniet - 9th - 1:59.357:
After yesterday's technical problems which prevented me going faster, we finally found a good pace especially on race tyres. The situation improved a lot and now I can ride with more confidence. We fixed some things before this morning’s free session such as engine mapping to control the braking stability, power delivery to make the bike smoother, the chassis geometry and the suspension setting. I had a small crash on the last lap on qualifying tyres but the most important thing is my pace on race tyres. At the end I was able to lap consistently fast even though we still have some things to adjust in tomorrow’s warm up session.
Nicky Hayden - 10th - 1:59.507:
Qualifying didn’t go to plan, really. It was OK early on, we were quite up front on race tyres. With my first qualifier I went to first place for a moment, then with my second qualifier I had the front push in turn 11 and down I went. I had a pretty good lap going but just didn’t get it down. The track is so long and so big it took me forever to get back to the pits, a little bit walking, a little bit scooter. Then I just got out on the other bike and did one run and didn’t get the chance to improve my time. I’m going to need an awesome start, try to pick a few guys off and move forward.
Andrea Dovizioso - 11th - 1:59.559:
I have to work hard tomorrow, but I think my race pace has potential. There are lots of riders who I feel are on similar lap times, so there’s a group of us who can put on a good show. The crash at the start of the session didn’t hurt me at all as it was very low speed. We were at a high angle of lean and the front-end of the bike simply washed away. The start will be very important and my key target is a good rhythm in the race and then to use to the maximum the good job the team has done on race set-up over the last two days.
Marco Melandri - 12th - 1:59.678:
Finally I can say I am happy! After three sessions when for one reason or another we couldn't work properly, this afternoon everything clicked. We've worked well, made some important modifications to the weight distribution to reduce spinning and that's allowed me to ride more comfortably. On qualifiers we've struggled a bit but the main thing is race pace. I don't want to make any predictions for tomorrow, about the weather or anything else, we'll just have to wait and see if we can continue this progression in the race. That's the way it should be - the team have always kept believing, remained optimistic and now we hope we can turn that into a result.
Shinya Nakano - 13th - 1:59.716:
I’m disappointed with qualifying today because in free practice I was fast and consistent. Unfortunately I crashed on a lap that could have potentially given us a better grid position – I got back on track with the second bike but I didn’t have the same feeling and couldn’t improve my best time. It’s hard to start from the fifth row but my pace isn’t bad so I’m confident. Now my thoughts are on tomorrow’s race – I have to focus on getting a good start in order to stay with the fast group.
John Hopkins - 14th – 1:59.740:
We were expecting a lot better than this after three good practice sessions here. The bike feels strong at this circuit, we know we have a good race tyre for tomorrow if it's dry and I'm feeling confident. But we've made our job a lot harder by not qualifying higher up the grid. We had two different types of qualifying tyre today, and one type worked well, but I made a couple of mistakes on my flying laps. The other type was virtually unusable because of the chatter it induced. In fact it was so bad, it virtually bounced me off the bike at the start of my last qualifying run. I'm disappointed because I was expecting much better but we've got a good set-up for the race. Now I just need to get my head down and go as hard as I can from the start.
Toni Elias – 15th - 1:59.933, 20 laps:
I am not happy with fifteenth position, but I know that I have good race rhythm, surely with a lower distance to the fastest riders, not like in the firsts three races. It will be very important to start well, if I’ll do so we can obtain a good result. This weekend we are surely enjoying racing much more, but we still have to improve to climb the classification.
Alex de Angelis - 16th - 2:00.316:
Unfortunately we know we still haven’t reached anywhere near our optimum potential on qualifying tyres. At the moment we haven’t got a good feeling with the new qualifiers that Bridgestone brought here to Shanghai – the chattering is similar to before so that’s why I’m starting so far back. It won’t be an easy race because when you start from so far back it is always tricky to make up positions. In any case I will give my best – a little rain might help us out.
Sylvain Guintoli – 17th - 2:00.760, 19 laps:
What to say, sincerely I expected much more. We started well in the afternoon, but when I tried to push the bike hard to improve, things don’t go as expected. It isn’t an easy situation, but the only solution we have is to work more and more. Tomorrow, it seems that it will be raining. I can’t hide this could be a small advantage for me right now, as I enjoy racing with wet track, but I also want to be competitive with dry track conditions.
Anthony West - 18th – 2:00.838:
We came into this weekend with high hopes after a successful test at Estoril but we've ended up disappointed again. We seem to have the same problem that's been plaguing us since the start of the season, where the bike just seems to spin up as soon as you touch the throttle on corner exit. John doesn't seem to have the same issues, so we know it's not a fundamental problem, but for now we're struggling to find a solution. It's frustrating but we're not giving up and I'll push as hard as I can. Rain is forecast and, while most people will be hoping it stays dry, a wet race wouldn't be unwelcome on my side of the pit box!
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