Qualifying below expectations for Pramac Racing Team

The third practice session at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway started well enough for the Pramac Racing Team, with Randy de Puniet and Loris Capirossi lapping in ninth and thirteenth. But the afternoon qualifying session did not see the green and white liveried riders on the same level. The Frenchman finished in twelfth place with the Italian in seventeenth.

Randy de Puniet:

"The first exit from the pits this afternoon went very well, although we had a rear tire with almost twenty laps and after thirty laps I recorded my best time. Then in the final try, with new tires, we were able to improve by only a few tenths of a second, and this doesn't make sense. I expected more, but we often have difficulties with new tires. I gave everything I had, tomorrow we will have to improve the bike, especially in the long corners. Our race pace is good, we aim to enter the top ten!"

Loris Capirossi:

"I'm disappointed, the team worked very well and the bike was ready. But I was not able to exploit the soft rubber as I should and I was relegated to the rear of the classification. It would take only three tenths less and we were almost in top ten, but this is not enough. We had a good start to the afternoon session but the last few laps we have not just exploited as we should. We hope to redeem in the race tomorrow, even if the shoulder pain is strong and I hope it will not cause me complications in the final part of the race."

Pramac Racing Team press release

Edwards primed for top six challenge in Indianapolis

The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team rider was able to transfer his good practice form into the 60 minute qualifying session and he will start tomorrow's race from sixth on the grid. Throughout the three practice sessions, Edwards was consistently running inside the top six and a fastest lap of 1’40.098 in a sun drenched qualifying session saw him finish just over 0.1s away from claiming fourth spot on the grid.

With the new infield paving offering improved levels of grip with more rubber laid down on the track, Edwards was able to lap 1.2s faster than his best time in qualifying at last year's race. The Texan is optimistic that he can battle for a third top six result of the 2011 season to strengthen his bid to finish the campaign as the leading non-factory rider.

British rider Cal Crutchlow had a frustrating end to an otherwise encouraging qualifying session and he will start the from 11th position on the grid. The 25-year-old has dedicated the majority of his time this weekend to make progress in finding a comfortable front-end setting with his YZR-M1. His commitment and determination looked like being rewarded with a top 10 place on the grid, but as he pushed to improve his best lap time of 1’40.620, Crutchlow was held up by another rider and had to quickly take evasive action to avoid a collision, running into the gravel, preventing him from making any further improvement to his lap time.

Colin Edwards:

“The weekend has been great so far and now I'm really looking forward to the race tomorrow. I haven't been out of the top six in every session and everything has been working fantastic. I feel great on the bike, my Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team have been working tirelessly again to give me a competitive package, and I'm sure a realistic goal is to finish in the top six. That would be a great result and I'm hoping to put on a good show for the Indy crowd tomorrow. The new pavement was a million times better today. Yesterday it was greasy and I was sliding around all over the place, but to finish third in that first practice session gave me a lot of confidence immediately and we have just built on that. The bike has felt the best it has for a few races and now I'm excited for the race. I need a good start but I'll be looking to have a good fight with Dovizioso and Simoncelli. In this heat it is going to be a long and tough race, but I'll be giving it my all for the American fans.”

Cal Crutchlow:

“I'm pretty disappointed…I had to swerve really quick to avoid hitting a rider and that is disappointing. I'm not saying I was going to jump into the top five, but I'm sure without that I might have qualified inside the top ten. That would have been a good result because I'm struggling with the front end again. I keep losing the front and it is proving quite difficult at the moment to find an improvement. I'm working really hard, and so are my guys, to find a solution. But we haven't quite made me as comfortable on the bike as I'd like. My pace is still not that bad and I'm sure I can be fighting in a group with Nicky and Alvaro tomorrow. If I can get a good start, I'm hopeful I can stay with them and have a good scrap.”

Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team press release

Yamaha paint Indianapolis front row red and white

Local hero Spies continued to impress with the strong form in evidence from the beginning of the weekend. The qualifying session saw him quickly up to impressive speed. Despite repeatedly breaking under the pole time for the first two splits Spies was unable to topple Casey Stoner from the top spot so will start from second place for the race.

Reigning World Champion Lorenzo finally made a breakthrough mid-qualifying after struggling for the first three sessions to find a competitive set up on the newly surfaced Indianapolis track. A big set up change to his YZR-M1 with less than half the session to go changed his fortunes, allowing him to climb quickly up to third behind his team mate with two quick laps in succession. Lorenzo will now use the valuable warm up time tomorrow morning to test the consistency of the set up before the race.

Ben Spies: 

“It was good today, we didn’t have a fast lap in the end but we got on the front row. We did over 30 laps on a set of tyres and went quite quick at the end, still able to do 39s which is good. The last couple of laps we tried our hardest to catch Casey but with five minutes to go I think I ripped my tank spacer off that holds me back on the bike which didn’t help. I wasn’t disappointed as I knew we had a gap to fourth so we’d be on the front row. It wasn’t the perfect session and Casey was just too fast. I think the race will be different; the tyres will be pretty greasy after ten laps but my bike’s working really well on used tyres so we’ll see what happens.”

Jorge Lorenzo: 

“Qualifying was much better than the other three practices so far this weekend. I improved a lot and had a lot more confidence with the front, we changed one bike completely which worked. We are much more confident for tomorrow now. I would like to be closer to Casey, but seven tenths is better than one second and a half. It’s going to be a very tough race for everybody. The front tyre, especially on the left side is graining from the fourth lap so it’s going to be a complicated ride. Let’s see what happens.”

Yamaha Factory Racing press release

Casey Stoner ahead of the pack Saturday morning

In cooler temperatures and with better grip conditions than the previous day, the premier class set out to lower their times across the board, with Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing) the first to dip below the 1’40” barrier at the 20 minute mark. The Texan was followed almost immediately by Casey Stoner (Repsol Honda) whose time of 1’39.538 remained the fastest lap of FP3. Spies bettered his earlier time to a 1’39.670 ranking him second behind the Australian for the second time this weekend.

Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa was the third and last to enter into the 1’39’s, his time of 1’39.896 set on lap 18 placed him third in the outing, followed by Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) with a 1’40.301 and Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) 0.025s behind Simoncelli in fifth.

Sixth quickest in FP3 with a best time of 1'40.438 was American Colin Edwards on his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 machine, the Texan was one tenth of a second ahead of Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) in seventh and 2 tenths ahead of Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team). Rossi’s time of 1’40.698 set on his last lap gave the Italian the position of first Ducati in the ranking, his team mate Nicky Hayden finished 11th.

Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki) ran off the track and was helped out of the gravel and returned to the track, the Spaniard was able to set a time of 1’40.916 on his last lap to place him tenth.

Stoner seizes Brickyard pole with new lap record

Casey Stoner (Repsol Honda) has yet to finish on the podium in two career starts at the Red Bull Indianapolis GP, but his new pole position record of 1'38.850 indicates that may soon be changing. The Australian will start from pole position for the seventh time in the 2011 season.

Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing) who started from pole least year, qualified second behind Stoner with a 1'39.373, while Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) bettered his morning pace with a new bike set up by nearly one second with a best lap of 1'39.629, giving him the final spot on the front row.

Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa held off Andrea Dovizioso to take the first spot on row two with a time of 1’39.947, the Spaniard’s time was 0.077s faster than that of his Italian team mate though a tenth slower than his earlier practice time. American Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) completes the second row after posting a time of 1'40.098.

Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) leads the third row, his time of 1'40.204 was a tenth quicker than the pace he lapped at in the morning practice outing. Nicky Hayden of the Ducati Team upped his pace to qualify eighth on the grid with a time of 1'40.244, nearly a second quicker than he was running in the morning. The final spot on row three went to Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki), who trailed Hayden’s time by just 0.040s.

Héctor Barberá (Mapfre Aspar) was the final rider in the top ten times, while Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) went down at the start of the session, rejoining the field aboard his second bike although the set up was clearly not ideal, as the nine time World Champion finish the qualifying in fourteenth.

Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) and Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) both had run offs into the gravel, the two will start from eleventh and twelfth, respectively, on the grid.

The Repsol Honda Team enjoys a strong start in Indianapolis

In this morning's first session, all three riders complained with the lack of grip that this new surface suffers from. Conditions improved slightly for the afternoon session after more rubber had been laid on track from the other classes. Lap times dropped consistently and Casey Stoner lapped three seconds faster than his morning lap time. Stoner ended the day at the top of the times sheets with an impressive 1'40.724, only six tenths slower than the circuit record lap of 1'40.152 (Jorge Lorenzo, 2009).

Dani Pedrosa focused on adapting to the new track conditions, working on the set up of his RC212V and found more grip claiming the third fastest time of the day, improving his morning lap times by four seconds.

Andrea Dovizioso finished fifth at the end of the first day. Andrea struggled with tyre wear during the afternoon session. Tomorrow he will continue to work on the set up and try to understand how manage tyre wear.

Casey Stoner:

"This afternoon the track was slightly better and of course the lap times improved with more bikes on track and cleaning it up, but I'm still not comfortable on this surface. It's incredibly slippery and the track is certainly my least favorite of the whole season. It's very tight, slippery and the new surface is pretty bad, it's not just the dirt on the surface but there seems to be something strange where the two surfaces join, some grease of some sort that creates more issues. We tried the harder front this afternoon which gave us good feedback and we were able to go a little bit faster, but in general the track needs to improve before we can know what direction to go in, and I just hope the conditions improve for the race. My last few exits were slightly ruined from traffic on track and also wildlife! I saw something out the corner of my eye, I'm not sure what it was perhaps a gopher or something, I thought it was a part from someone’s bike, I'm just glad we both escaped from that situation unharmed!"

Dani Pedrosa:

"The track improved in the second session, at least on the racing line, but outside the line the surface is still very dirty and slippery. However, we made some better lap times; it's just about getting a good setup with the tyres and trying to take care of them. Let's hope that the conditions keep improving throughout the weekend and we can keep working step by step on the set up considering that the tyres will be the key point in this race. In general, I'm happier than this morning, we were able to improve by four seconds in just one session, but we have to keep focused and make another step forward tomorrow."

Andrea Dovizioso: 

“The track improved a lot from the morning to the afternoon and in FP2 the lap times dropped by three seconds. With more rubber on track, the grip changed quickly and now the main issue is tyre wear. This is typical for new asphalt so we have to manage the tyres carefully, with special attention on the front tyre. The key point for the race will be managing the tyres. I hope that conditions will improve again tomorrow as with today’s situation it’s impossible to finish the race. I’m not worried with fifth position as when it was time to push, we weren't able to because we had to keep the tyres for tomorrow so I’m confident that we can be competitive here.”

Repsol Honda press release.

Rossi and Hayden work on GP11.1 set up

Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden followed two different paths in their search for the right setup for the GP11.1, with the Italian suffering more from the rapidly improving grip as the riders cleaned the track. Both are confident of improving tomorrow.

Nicky Hayden: 

“It definitely took a few laps to feel out the new surface and get some rubber down this morning, but toward the end of the afternoon session, you could really start carrying some speed in a few corners. I have to remember that I probably need a little bit of time to understand the bike, and the team needs more time to understand which direction to work. Still, we’re too far off the pace for my home track, and I certainly had hoped to be faster today. We’ll just stay positive and keep working toward Sunday. The new bike definitely does some things better, but we’ve got to get some weight to transfer to the front so that I can get it to turn.”

Valentino Rossi: 

“This morning the track conditions were really critical. There was no grip, and it seemed like we were riding in the wet. Things improved a lot in the afternoon though, which is a sign that the asphalt is good and that it was just very dirty since it hadn’t been ridden on yet. It’s also a good sign for tomorrow because the conditions should continue to improve. Also, there are fewer bumps, so they did a good job. As for us, we didn’t expect the grip to improve so much this afternoon and we had to chase a setup the whole session, as I really couldn’t feel the bike. Tomorrow we’ll completely change the balance. Nicky didn’t go bad, so we’ll try to improve as well: the step forward that we made at Brno is still there. We just tried a set up a little too strange since we didn’t expect the conditions to change so much from one session to the next.”

Ducati Team press release