125cc – Phillip Island QP2 – Italian double with Pasini and De Rosa

On the worst day since time immemorial for the Aspar team with no rider on the front row, the Italian two-wheeler is celebrating big at Phillip Island, with Mattia Pasini and Raffaele De Rosa who will start tomorrow from the first two positions on the starting grid. A beautiful duel which saw the driver from Rimini prevail, taking his ninth pole position of the season, achieved despite a few too many difficulties for the usual slow "trail-sucking" drivers. Mattia, close to moving up to 250cc, stopped the clock at 1'38"078, 26 thousandths of a second ahead of Raffaele De Rosa who is back in vogue after some tests experienced in silence; Fiorenzo Caponera's Neapolitan driver experienced quite a few problems in his last two laps available, where he encountered a sequence of slower Smiths, Cortese and Koyama in front of him. De Rosa practically threw two laps away, but remains satisfied with a "just missed" pole with excellent prospects ahead of tomorrow.

Closing the front row are Lukas Pesek, stopped at the end by his Derbi, and Tomoyoshi Koyama with the KTM, followed by Simone Corsi in fifth and the protagonist of a bad fall (he also hit his head) at the end. No physical consequences for the former Aprilia and Gilera official, he will be among the protagonists tomorrow in a tussle with Hector Faubel, sixth on the grid and with the golden possibility of recovering precious points from Gabor Talmacsi, ninth without being able to improve the time reference of yesterday.

Speaking of the other Italians, Lorenzo Zanetti is 14th, Iannone (battered after yesterday's fall) 22nd, further behind Lombardi, Tamburini and Ferruccio Lamborghini, who qualified in 30th position on his debut with the ex-Sandi Aprilia. There wasn't the same luck for the Leigh Smith brothers (one of whom crashed mid-session) and for the Romanian Muresan, who remained stuck in the pits following his crash in the morning (where he was doing quite well).

Alessio Piana