MotoGP – Brno QP1 – Barros and Bayliss in seventh and thirteenth position

Qualifying for the Brno Grand Prix heralds a truly hard-fought race, with thirteen riders capable of lapping under Valentino Rossi's pole position record from last year. They have been battling it out since the beginning of the weekend and during the official practice session they went wild, alternating at the top of the standings with fast laps. Alex Barros, working until the last minute to fine-tune his yellow RC211V, obtained the seventh overall time and demonstrated a good pace in terms of race pace. Troy Bayliss also did well in this sense even though he was very unlucky when it came to doing the last lap on the time tyre. In fact, an insignificant technical difficulty prevented him from attempting to lower his time further.

Pons website – Camel Honda
“Alex has a decent race pace, very close to that of the fastest and we will try to put him in a position to improve something further tomorrow in the warm up. In any case he isn't bad now either and if he manages to play well he will be able to join the group of the best and compete with them. It's a shame for Troy that he wasn't able to take advantage of his latest soft tire due to a small technical problem. In any case, he made good progress today too and in a close race like tomorrow's will certainly be, his fighting spirit will certainly come out."

Alex Barros – Camel Honda – 1'58.223 – 7th time
“We worked a lot on the setup. Until the last minute before fitting the soft tire to set the time. Suspensions, set-up, geometries, electronics, everything, much more than usual to find the best setup. With a lot of tests and modifications tried on the bike, my pace isn't exceptional but it's not bad at all either. We lap on 1'59 and a half 1'59 and seven and perhaps we need to remove a couple of tenths to stay with Sete and Valentino. But I am generally satisfied with the work we have done and I think that tomorrow in the warm up we can improve further. Compared to Friday, Michelin brought us other tires that are working very well. Tomorrow will be a very tough race, there are many of us within a few tenths, but I feel ready to battle."

Troy Bayliss – Camel Honda – 1'58.662 – 13th fastest
“I'm in thirteenth position but things didn't go badly over the weekend, on the contrary. We improved session after session and again this afternoon everything went well until the last five minutes when I wasn't able to make my last attempt on the soft tire due to a small, insignificant detail that broke. It's a bit annoying but these are things that can happen, I'm still happy with the work we did on the bike and I'm confident for tomorrow's race."

Camel Honda