MotoGP championship leader Jorge Lorenzo put Yamaha on pole position at the US Grand Prix after a tight, fluctuating battle with Ducati’s Australian Casey Stoner in qualifying on Saturday.
Lorenzo secured the top slot with a best lap of 1 minute, 20.978 seconds at a sun-soaked Laguna Seca circuit, with Stoner second in 1 minute, 21.169 seconds and Honda’s Italian Andrea Dovizioso third in 1 minute, 21.617 seconds.
It was the 23-year-old Spaniard’s fifth consecutive pole, the 14th of his MotoGP career, and left him ideally placed to stretch his 47-point overall lead when he bids for his sixth victory of the season.
Ben Spies of the US gave the home fans something to celebrate by finishing fifth on his Yamaha, just 0.024 seconds behind Honda’s Spaniard Dani Pedrosa, winner of last week’s German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring.
“This is my fifth pole position, so it is impressive for us to make it,” Lorenzo told reporters after snatching pole from Stoner with his penultimate lap in the one-hour session over the twisting, technically challenging circuit.
“I thought I couldn’t make it because the lap time of Casey was so quick, but I try,” said the Spaniard, who has finished no worse than second in eight races this season. “I say to myself: ‘I will push more’ and I did it.”
Stoner, the winner in 2007 when he went on to clinch the MotoGP world title, was the fastest rider in official practice and he recorded the best lap early on in qualifying.
The 24-year-old Australian, bidding for his first win this season, then traded places with Lorenzo five times at the top, before the Spaniard secured pole with his blistering late flourish.
“We definitely need to improve the bike a little bit before tomorrow,” Stoner said. “We tried a few different things that weren’t really working and unfortunately one of the settings took a long time to change, so we wasted a little bit of time. I thought we could have gone faster, but I’m definitely happy to be on the front row again. Hopefully we can push a little bit more toward the front, something that I haven’t done this year.”
World champion Valentino Rossi made a spectacular return from injury at last week’s German Grand Prix, but the Italian showman has found the going much tougher preparing for the US Grand Prix.
Six days after finishing a highly impressive fourth at the Sachsenring, the nine-time world champion battled to qualify sixth.
Although he has recovered surprisingly quickly after breaking his right leg last month at his home Grand Prix at Mugello, he is still being hampered by a shoulder injury dating back to April.
“My leg feels better than yesterday, which is good, but the problem today was the shoulder,” the 31-year-old told reporters after recording a best lap of 1 minute, 21.688 seconds in qualifying.
“My left one isn’t strong enough to compensate completely for the lack of power in my right one and now I have some pain in both shoulders,” he said. “My hope for tomorrow is to be able to finish the race without too much pain and to do the best we can in the circumstances.”
Rossi had always expected a tough test at Laguna Seca, which is one of the tightest and most physically demanding tracks on the MotoGP circuit, despite also being the shortest.
“This track is a lot harder for me than Sachsenring,” said the Italian Yamaha rider, who was initially told by doctors he would be out for at least three months after breaking his leg in practice for the Italian Grand Prix. “When I go down to change direction and I have to push on the right leg, I have some pain.”
Rossi knows he will face an uphill task when he starts almost a second behind Lorenzo and Stoner.
“We didn’t go too badly today, but we need to improve our setting a little bit to get closer to the leaders,” the Italian said. “Lorenzo and Stoner are very fast, but after that there are a few riders quite close together, including me. There are a few corners where we know we can be a bit faster, so tomorrow [Sunday] morning we will try to make some small changes to the setting to allow that. Then I need to get a good start [and] ... hope I can do a good race.”
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