MotoGP
Pedrosa in front for German GP start
In a day dominated by Honda powered riders, Dani Pedrosa claimed his fourth pole position of the season in qualifying on the Sachsenring circuit in Chemnitz for the German Grand Prix, tenth round of the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix ...
Published: Jul 16, 2006, 6:10 AM
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In a day dominated by Honda powered riders, Dani Pedrosa claimed his fourth pole position of the season in qualifying on the Sachsenring circuit in Chemnitz for the German Grand Prix, tenth round of the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix (MotoGP). American racer Kenny Roberts Jr. and standings leader, Nicky Hayden, will join the Spaniard on the front row tomorrow.
"I'm happy to get pole position but the most important thing really was to get on the front row because the track is very tight at the beginning and there are only two or three passing points here", the 20 year-old rider remarked.
Pedrosa's performance was all the more impressive considering he fell in the closing stages of this morning's practice session causing considerable damage to his RC211V.
"I'm fine after the crash this morning, but the bike was not so lucky. The mechanics worked very hard through lunch to have the bike ready for qualifying and first of all this afternoon I just tried to run-in the bike and check everything. Then I pushed harder and my lap time was good, so overall I'm pleased with how it went today", he said.
Repsol Honda's ace Pedrosa marked 1:21.815 to take the pole position, just 0.092 ahead of Roberts Jr, who notched his top personal performance of the year so far.
"The bike felt well balanced. I could have tried to get more out of it if I had pushed harder but I'm more than happy and the front row is a definite bonus", the 2000 season champion commented.
Roberts Jr. keep showing that Catalunyan GP podium wasn`t a sourprise but a fact that the Roberts KR211V with Honda engines it able to fight for important results and positions.
Hayden put the other bike of the Repsol Honda in third place at 0.268 of his teammate. The Kentucky boy has the challenge to defend his championship leader condition in Sunday's race.
"I'm happy to be on the front row and this is the best I've qualified for a while, so it's been positive. We've been close out of the gate and we haven't had to make a lot of big changes to the bike set- up, we've just been sweetening it up, and I think we've got a pretty strong package this weekend", Hayden secured.
The American ace and leader in the championhip with 26 points over Pedrosa, will try tomorrow to get his first victory in this circuit where already claimed to podiums in the past two seasons.
Fourth place belonged to Japanese racer Shinya Nakano with the Kawasaki; he was followed by Loris Capirossi on the Ducati Desmosedici GP6. Marco Melandri was sixth fastest, while Sete Gibernau was able to qualify in seventh spot in his return to competition from an injury suffered in the Catalunyan GP.
In a complicated journey for Valentino Rossi, the reigning World Champion put his Yamaha M1 eleventh, 1.053 adrift Pedrosa.
"The race setting is not so bad but things were very different on the qualifying tyre.
We are getting too much weight onto the front end of the bike and when the rear qualifying tyre grips so much this pushes the front even harder and I almost crashed a couple of times", mentioned Rossi in his search for an explanation to the situation.
MotoGP expects to have another great show in Sachsenring with the usual head-head fight for a new victory in the Continental Circus.
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