Rider quotes from yesterday’s dramatic and crash strewn qualifying sessione at the Mazda Speedway at Laguna Seca.
Update on Jorge Lorenzo’s conditions: The Spanish rider besides dislocating his collarbone, has a fractured metatarsal in his right foot and mini fracture to his finger.
Jorge Lorenzo -1st 1′21.
678 “I was trying to push but first I had some traffic and then the tyres were cold, and I wasn’t in the right shape to try to improve my time.
I’m disappointed for these two crashes but I am okay and I am optimistic that I will be able to ride tomorrow.
Now the American doctors and the Clinica Mobile are working together to try to help me as best they can and make me more comfortable.
Thanks to all the American people here for their support!” Valentino Rossi – 2nd 1′21.
845 “Firstly I want to say that I hope Lorenzo and Stoner are okay for the race tomorrow, because it should be a great battle between the three of us.
I am happy about this session because we have had two practices today when we haven’t been in perfect shape and we have struggled in some areas, especially in the last sector where we are still not strong enough.
I was finding it quite hard to ride at the maximum there today and control the bike how I wanted, so we need to try to improve a bit more.
It depends how the other two are but I hope they’re okay and then we can have an exciting race.
” Casey Stoner – 3rd 1′21.
910“To be honest the bike had given us a few warnings in a lot of places around the circuit today and I’m sure there were a lot of other guys in a similar situation.
The tyre is quite hard on the right-hand side and needs a couple of laps to warm up properly.
Unfortunately on the lap before the crash, in the most important corner for heating that side of the tyre up I was held up by two riders having a disagreement and then I got stuck behind one of them into the next right-hander too.
I was wary that the tyre would be cooler than I needed it to be on the next lap so I went into turn three a lot more carefully than normal, but as I closed the gas on the way into the corner the rear just came around.
I tried to pick the bike up and go straight into the gravel but it didn’t want to and that was it – it threw me straight up in the air! It hurt when I landed but I thought I’d only winded myself – now it looks like I might have torn something in my groin, which is not the best thing to happen before the race.
Anyway, we have a great bike for this track so we’ll see what we can do.
”Dani Pedrosa – 4th – 1’22.
113“We started this afternoon’s session really well and were able to lap consistently quickly straight away.
Towards the end it became a little bit more difficult to improve the lap times because they tyres weren’t quite getting up to temperature and it was easy to make a mistake – we saw a few crashes out there later in the session.
Fourth on the grid is not bad – I would have liked to be on the front row of course but fourth is ok.
For tomorrow I’d like to improve our race pace by about three tenths per lap and that’s what we’ll work on in the warm-up.
We did a lot of laps today on the tyres we’re planning to race on and this was one of our targets this weekend so I’m satisfied with that.
It’s a short lap here and there isn’t any chance to rest which is going to make it a tough race tomorrow.
You have to stay very focused and concentrated because it’s easy to make a mistake.
In the sessions today I was mostly riding on a clear track, so I’m confident that if I can get away with the front group then this will help my rhythm and pace even more.
”Andrea Dovizioso – 5th 1’ 22.
235 “As I expected this afternoon, with the higher temperatures and using the hard Bridgestones, I could improve my lap times by a decent amount over this morning.
That’s good because these are the tyres we’ll use for the race and we’re in pretty good shape.
I think I have a good race pace and starting from the second row is not bad.
Towards the end of qualifying I think I could have gone even quicker with the last soft tyre but I was on track when Lorenzo crashed so I had to slow down because there were yellow flags.
Anyway, I’m happy with qualifying and tomorrow we’ll aim to make a good start and stay with the leaders.
In the heat of the race I think I should be able to grit my teeth and shave a few more tenths from my lap time too.
This track is really special and the atmosphere here is unique, so and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s race.
I hope we can be competitive and give the team a strong result before we head back to Europe.
”Toni Elias – 6th 1’22.
146 “To be perfectly honest, that was probably the toughest session of the weekend so far, but in the end we met our objective, which was to secure a place on one of the front two rows for the race tomorrow.
Sixth place gives us a good chance, my pace is decent so I hope to get a good enough start to be able to follow Rossi and Stoner because I think we have the potential to stay with them.
They’re really quick but we have to give it a shot.
I truly think we have the chance to give them a race tomorrow and we can’t afford to let opportunities like this pass us by.
We have worked hard so far this season without much reward so hopefully this weekend will be the turning point for us.
We’ve made good progress but now we have to back it up.
”Colin Edwards – 7th 1.
22.
490 “The bike felt better than yesterday but I’m still not completely happy and I’ve still got a few issues to iron out before the race.
I made a mistake this morning and did a bit of damage to a finger on my right hand, but nothing that is giving me too many problems.
It wasn’t fun though high-siding at Turn 10 because that’s not a slow corner.
I was on my head and then my back, so just to take a fingernail off I feel pretty lucky.
But the big issue is the feeling from the front-end.
I’ve got too much movement and as soon as I go into the corner it doesn’t feel stable at all.
To be seventh I’m pretty happy because I didn’t feel like I could push as hard as I want or need to.
But if I can eliminate a couple of problems in the warm-up I’m confident of a good race.
I know it is going to be tough to get a podium tomorrow but I’ll be giving it my all for the American fans and for Monster.
There are a lot of people here to support me on a big weekend for America and I’m determined to give them a good result.
”Nicky Hayden – 8th 1′22.
540“I’m happy with that.
I know eighth place is nothing to write home about but it’s a big result for us and I’m relieved after yesterday.
The data guys did a good job and we made a good step with the mapping this morning that allowed me to come off the corners a lot better.
I had a crash at the end of free practice that set us back a little bit but we got it together for qualifying this afternoon and at the end there it looked like I might steal P6, which I would have been real happy with.
We slipped back to eighth but considering that we usually lose positions from free practice to qualifying, to make some up today is pleasing.
It got pretty gnarly at the end of the session there, a lot of guys were crashing and there were yellow flags everywhere.
People thought getting rid of qualifying tyres would make things safer but when grid positions are as important as they are at a circuit like this you’re going to have guys hanging it out for a fast lap on a race tyre, and that ain’t so safe! I don’t remember a dry qualifying session with so much carnage at the end and it’s something we need to look at.
”Chris Vermeulen – 9th 1’22.
633“I managed to stay upright this afternoon for a whole hour, so that was a first for this weekend and the mechanics are also very pleased about that! Firstly though, I want to thank my crew because they worked so hard between sessions today after I wrecked a bike this morning.
The crew has done a great job and managed to get the bike ready for this afternoon.
When we went out we made quite an improvement and took some big steps in lap-times.
I was able to do the lap-times very consistently and I think we can do that tomorrow in the race.
We still need to find a bit more pace to be right at the front, but the front feeling certainly got better today, although we are still looking for a bit more rear grip.
We still have a couple of things to work on tomorrow morning, but we should be in good shape for the race.
I am a bit disappointed to be on the third row as I feel like I had the pace to be nearer the front of the grid.
It will be important to get a good start and get right up there early on and work on things from there.
”Loris Capirossi – 10th 1’22.
662“I think we tried to do too much in the first two sessions of this weekend and I felt more like a test rider because I really tested everything we had and we never really found anything that worked.
Then, this afternoon, we went back to a more standard setting like we have used in the past, and we finally got a rhythm and improved lap-by-lap.
It is still not great and to be 10th on the grid is not that good, but compared to where we were yesterday, and after this morning, it is a lot better.
The thing is that we have really lost a couple of hours of testing and now we will find it hard to make any improvements in warm-up tomorrow morning because the conditions will still be a bit cold.
I am really positive for the race because we have improved so much and we will have to wait and see what can happen tomorrow.
”Alex De Angelis – 12th 1’23.
004 “Our grid position is not great, but our race pace looks good and I’m pleased with the progress, we’ve made so far this weekend.
We’ve improved the performance of the bike under braking and solved the front-end stability issues that we struggled so much with at Assen.
We tried the harder compound front tyre today but it gave us a bit of a chattering problem.
We believe and we hope that it is only the tyre that caused the problem and by switching back to the softer compound we’ll resolve it.
It is only a small thing and it didn’t affect our race pace too much, but I’m confident we can still find a little more speed for tomorrow.
”Randy De Puniet – 14th 1’23.
147“Honestly we have struggled since yesterday to find a good set up which makes me comfortable on the bike.
After the first run this afternoon, I thought we found the right direction as I could do decent lap times on race trim.
But as soon as I came in on soft tyres, we realized that we could not improve our lap time.
I made a few mistakes and found some traffic in the last minutes but my machine is not good enough at the moment.
I am sure the guys will work hard to fix our issues for tomorrow’s warm up session”.
James Toseland -15th 1.
23.
390“It was a tough session and pretty obvious that we’ve got a lot of work to do.
After such a good race in Assen when we made massive progress with the set-up of the bike, I just can’t get the same confident feeling I had last weekend.
I wasn’t pushing too hard at the last corner when the front tucked and I was down.
I was running a different setting on the front and I never really felt comfortable with it.
The crash forced me to switch to the spare bike and we tried a new setting on the front and it just didn’t really work.
I’m nowhere near where I expected to be and that is disappointing.
But as always I’ll be working as hard as ever with my guys at Monster Yamaha Tech 3 to find some improvements for the race.
”Niccolò Canepa – 16th 1′23.
912“We could have done well today, but the slip at the beginning of the session complicated the program of work we had in mind.
I lost too much time to get back at the garage and once back on the bike I used some time to find back the right confidence to push at the limit.
Unluckily, as it happened to Lorenzo and Stoner, the right part of the rear tyre doesn’t make it to keep the right temperature and you can find yourself on the ground at any moment.
For this reason tomorrow we will almost for sure use the softer tyres we have here.
”Gabor Talmacsi – 17th 1′24.
528 “It is a challenging track – you can never relax.
I’m satisfied with the free practises, as I was able to improve lap after lap, and session after session.
I had a few problems in qualifying with the tyres.
I saw it was difficult for everybody.
We have some ideas for tomorrow: we will test them during the warm-up, to improve our performance in the race”.