MotoGP
Italian GP: Michelin qualifying report
Michelin men packed the front end of the grid at Mugello today, five of Michelin's seven MotoGP riders within the fastest eight during qualifying. It has been a challenging two days in Italy with rain falling throughout much of yesterday, this ...
Published: May 31, 2008, 7:07 PM
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Michelin men packed the front end of the grid at Mugello today, five of Michelin's seven MotoGP riders within the fastest eight during qualifying. It has been a challenging two days in Italy with rain falling throughout much of yesterday, this afternoon's qualifying session the only fully dry outing so far, a factor that greatly complicates the art of tyre choice for tomorrow's race.
Fastest Michelin rider was Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC212V-Michelin) who topped free practice this morning and then backed that up with an impressive second place in qualifying, just 0.167s off pole position. Colin Edwards (Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1-Michelin) and Nicky Hayden (Repsol Honda RC212V-Michelin) were also strong in qualifying, Edwards leading the session for 15 minutes and ending up fifth fastest, a mere 0.253 seconds off pole and just ahead of Hayden. Jorge Lorenzo (Fiat Yamaha Team YZR-M1-Michelin) and Mugello first-timer James Toseland (Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1-Michelin) head the third row.
"We're quite happy with this afternoon's qualifying session because we were able to do some good work in dry conditions," said Jean-Philippe Weber, Michelin's director of motorcycle racing. "This morning the track temperature was quite low and the lap times were good, we were doing 49s. This afternoon it was a lot warmer, with a track temperature of more than 35 degrees, so things were more difficult. With so little dry track time this weekend we still have some more work to do in morning warm-up to improve performance in these conditions and to choose race tyres."
-credit: michelin
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