US GP: Suzuki qualifying report

Big steps for Rizla Suzuki in American qualifying

Rizla Suzuki racers Loris Capirossi and Alvaro Bautista made significant improvements during today's final practice and qualifying sessions for tomorrow's American Grand Prix.

Capirossi (P12, 1'22.647, 32 laps) took just over two seconds off his time from yesterday, whilst team-mate Bautista (P14, 1'22.770, 35 laps) shaved almost two-and-a-half seconds off his best time from Friday. Both riders are in a positive mood ahead of tomorrow's race around the 3,610m Laguna Seca circuit, as they believe that the improvements made today will continue though the 32-laps of the race.

Today's qualifying was held in warm and sunny conditions with track temperatures reaching 47oC. World Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo secured his fifth successive pole position on his factory Yamaha.

Tomorrow's 32-lap race is round 10 on the MotoGP calendar and the main event will get underway at 14.00hrs local time (21.00hrs GMT).

Loris Capirossi:

"From a complete disaster yesterday, today is much better. Every run I did I went quicker and the feeling got better all the time. We made quite big improvements on the bike and we tried to use very little traction control to make the bike more stable. The engineers worked really well throughout all of today and modified the bike a lot to get the right set-up. I think that after today the bike feels more consistent than it has in the past and this is very important for us. Overall it's not too bad and I think that tomorrow we can make a good job of things and get a positive result."

Alvaro Bautista:

"Today I'm much happier than I was yesterday. I was a hard first practice and last night I thought a lot about the track, because it was incredible to ride here for the first time. Today I have a much clearer idea of the track and where my reference points need to be. I went much faster today than yesterday and I felt I was able to push on a used tyre and get a good rhythm. For qualifying we tested the harder compound tyres, but my feeling wasn't as good as with the softer ones, so I think we will be using the soft option for the race. I was happy with my qualifying lap-time because I have made a big step over the two days and now I want to look at the telemetry to see where the places are on the track that I can still improve. Tomorrow I'll be happy to take some more steps and improve my time and feeling in the race. I hope that for the race I can go faster and I'm very confident that if I can get a good start I can stay with the middle group and battle for a top-10 finish."

-source: rizla suzuki