TT Assen: Repsol Honda qualifying report

The Repsol Hondas of Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa will start from sixth and seventh places on the grid for tomorrow's Dutch TT after a tricky qualifying session for the factory Honda squad at Assen today. Both riders are looking to make improvements to their race set-ups ahead of tomorrow's 26-lap encounter after today's two MotoGP sessions didn't yield the results they were looking for.

Dovizioso will start from the second row as he bids to extend his recent run of rostrum finishes which has seen him in the top three in four of the first five races of 2010. He set his fastest lap of the qualifying session on only his eleventh of 30 laps this afternoon and, while still lacking the front-end feeling that he's looking for from his RC212V at Assen, he wasn't able to improve on that lap in the second half of the session.

Pedrosa set the third quickest time in the morning practice and improved his lap time by three tenths of a second in the afternoon to set a mark of 1m 35.1162s, which places him at the front of the third row. Though the Spaniard and his crew still have some work to do to establish the optimum race set-up, with progress expected in the morning warm-up session, Pedrosa is determined to make one of his famous fast starts and get away with the leading pack tomorrow.

Jorge Lorenzo took pole position today, ahead of Randy de Puniet on the LCR Honda and Casey Stoner in third. The 80th running of the Dutch TT will commence at 14.00 tomorrow.

ANDREA DOVIZIOSO -- 6th -- 1m 35.015s +0.500s

"Tomorrow we will start from the second row which is ok, and with a good start I hope to get away with the leaders. The gap to the front of five tenths of a second is not too much and we also have a good race pace, although actually I set this lap when I was following Lorenzo. We have some front end issues that we need to solve and this is what we want to sort out by tomorrow afternoon - otherwise it will be a difficult race. In fact I'm losing time in T3 and T4, which are the fastest parts of the track, so front end feel is really important here. However, I'm feeling confident and I think that me and the team can come up with some ideas to improve things for tomorrow."

DANI PEDROSA -- 7th -- 1m 35.162s +0.647s

"This morning we started with some adjustments to the suspension and we went a little harder at the front end. My fastest lap time was ok this morning but to be honest we didn't find the solutions we were looking for and we still have some work to do to find the right set-up. In T1, where we were losing a lot of time yesterday, things have improved a little bit but clearly not enough - and we also have to improve the feeling when I brake because at the moment I can't push to the maximum. It's a similar situation on the soft or the hard option Bridgestones so that choice isn't made yet for us. We'll keep on working this evening and try to make some significant improvements for the race tomorrow."

TOSHIYUKI YAMAJI - REPSOL HONDA TEAM MANAGER

"Again things weren't simple for us today and Andrea and Dani are starting tomorrow's race from further back on the grid than we had hoped for. Sixth and seventh isn't a disaster by any means, but it does put a premium on both riders getting a good start which is what they will be focusing on tomorrow. Andrea still needs to establish some more confidence with the front and Dani's team still have some set-up work to do. However, our pace with the hard Bridgestone tyre is not bad and I'm confident Andrea and Dani can fight hard in the race. The team will be working hard tonight to give our riders the best possible chance for tomorrow."

-source: repsol