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2009-04-12 Stoner on pole in Qatar - top three rider claims
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 Casey Stoner transformed his free practice dominance to pole position in opening round in 2009 MotoGP championship, around half second in front of his closest rival, Valentino Rossi. Rossi was, on the other hand, just few tenths of a second faster than his team-mate Lorenzo. Trio that will start from front row also looks like best bet for podium finishers. Read their impressions after qualifying session.
Casey Stoner - 1st - 1:55.286:
It rained a little bit at ‘lunchtime’ between the two practice sessions today but it was gone as quickly as it arrived and we were relieved that we were able to ride at all. There is a little bit of dust and dirt that seems to come down with the rain here so we knew the track conditions would be slick and the lap times wouldn’t come down much. The reality was that there was so much dirt out there that the softer compound tyres worked virtually like a qualifier and only lasted for a couple of laps. Even on a race tyre it is hard to predict whether your set-up is going to work because the conditions are different every time we go out so we’re going to have to wait and see what tomorrow brings. It’s impossible to guess what could happen in the race but generally I’m happy with our set-up and the main thing for us at this early stage is to pick up points, keep working on our weaknesses and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes as last year by getting to the middle of the season with problems to fix. The whole team are keeping our fingers crossed for Nicky too. Hopefully he can ride tomorrow but the most important thing is that he’s okay.
Valentino Rossi - 2nd - 1:55.759:
I am really happy to be on the front row here because we know that this isn’t one of our best tracks. We also knew that Stoner would be strong and, although this is definitely true, we’re not too far off and the gap is closing all the time. Starting second is going to be very important here because there is a question mark over the tyres on this surface. The asphalt is still very dirty which is hard on the tyres and I think that the last few laps are going to be quite entertaining! There are a couple of places on the track where we can still be faster so we will have a look at the data and I hope we can make another step in the warm up and fix a couple of small problems. There is definitely a question mark over the last six or seven laps though and I think we could be sliding about a bit. Anyway, everyone is in the same position, with the same tyres, and it could make it quite fun; let’s wait and see.
Jorge Lorenzo - 3rd - 1:55.783:
After being on pole here in my first MotoGP race last year, I am happy to be back on the front row at least! It is going to be important I think because it will be a hard race. During the test here I was faster with the hard tyre but for some reason we have the opposite situation this time and I am much faster with the soft tyre. With the hard tyre we have a few issues still, which is a problem because this is the tyre we need to use for the race. Now we need to work hard to try to solve the problem tonight. Tomorrow I won’t be thinking about winning, just about doing the best I can and taking as many points as is possible in the circumstances. Of course you never know what will happen in a race!
Complete Qatar qualifying results:
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