Rossi grasps Donington pole

Added on Saturday, July 25th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments

Valentino Rossi stormed his way to his fourth pole position of the year, ahead of tomorrow’s MotoGP at Donington Park.

With just two and a half minutes of the hour-long session remaining, a “surprised” Rossi took advantage of the perfect dry and sunny conditions to set a quickest time of 1:28.116, less than one tenth of a second ahead of Spaniard Dani Pedrosa.

The early stages were seemingly dominated by Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo, with the duo each beating one another’s times. Stoner, having held the top spot for the majority of the first half an hour, was later demoted down the order after a crash at Mcleans. The Australian also suffered an incident at the Melbourne Loop during the morning, but both he and his Ducati recovered well. Despite a late surge from both riders at the end of qualifying, Lorenzo and Stoner were left occupying third and fourth on the grid respectively, with the former confirming his 100% front row start status.

Andrea Dovizioso secured a second row start for tomorrow’s race, setting the fifth quickest time, alongside American Colin Edwards. Marco Melandri put in a sterling performance, with his Kawasaki powering him to seventh, just ahead of Toni Elias. Fin Mika Kallio put in a strong performance in the mid section of the hour, finding himself as high as fifth before gradually dropping back to 11th. Further adrift Nicky Hayden endured a difficult session, which left him fifteenth.

British hero, James Toseland, occupied the latter half of the top ten for much of the session, until an outstanding lap put him temporarily fifth. After returning to the pits part way through, he later slipped down the order, however still managed to secure a top ten spot, qualifying ninth.

British Grand Prix, Qualifying Result:

Pos.	Rider	Nat	Team	Time
1	Valentino Rossi	ITA	Fiat Yamaha Team	1’28.116
2	Dani Pedrosa	SPA	Repsol Honda Team	+0.095
3	Jorge Lorenzo	SPA	Fiat Yamaha Team	+0.286
4	Casey Stoner	AUS	Ducati Marlboro Team	+0.330
5	Andrea Dovizioso	ITA	Repsol Honda Team	+0.662
6	Colin Edwards	USA	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	+0.749
7	Marco Melandri	ITA	Hayate Racing Team	+0.949
8	Toni Elias	SPA	San Carlo Honda Gresini	+1.059
9	James Toseland	GBR	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	+1.154
10	Randy De Puniet	FRA	LCR Honda MotoGP	+1.318
11	Mika Kallio	FIN	Pramac Racing	+1.483
12	Alex De Angelis	RSM	San Carlo Honda Gresini	+1.484
13	Chris Vermeulen	AUS	Rizla Suzuki MotoGP	+1.982
14	Loris Capirossi	ITA	Rizla Suzuki MotoGP	+2.037
15	Nicky Hayden	USA	Ducati Marlboro Team	+2.152
16	Niccolo Canepa	ITA	Pramac Racing	+2.456
17	Gabor Talmacsi	HUN	Scot Racing Team MotoGP	+3.077