MotoGP Valencia, Qualifying: Dani Pedrosa takes Pole Position ahead of Lorenzo
Sixth pole of 2012 for the Repsol Honda Team rider
Pole position in the last race of the 2012 world championship went to Dani Pedrosa, rider of the Repsol Honda Team. The Spaniard achieved it with a time of 1:30.844, a time obtained on the twenty-fifth of his twenty-six passes.
The Honda rider will start on the front row with his Yamaha compatriot and 2012 world champion Jorge Lorenzo, 351 thousandths behind. The Majorcan, winner of his second MotoGP title at Phillip Island (the fourth of his career) preceded in turn the Australian Casey Stoner, the outgoing champion and in his last race in the world championship. Stoner pays a gap to the Honda team-mate of just over half a second.
Second row for the two Team Tech 3 riders Cal Crutchlow (4th) and Andrea Dovizioso (6th) who will have the 2011 Moto2 champion Stefan Bradl in their midst. The Forlì native, who will be riding the Ducati from Tuesday, lapped in 1:31.795.
The first Ducati is that of Nicky Hayden, seventh with his GP12. Kentucki Kid who won the world championship here in 2006 has a gap from the top of 1.659, behind him the Honda RC213V SAT of Alvaro Bautista's Team Gresini, the Ducati of Hector Barberà's Team Pramac and the first CRT, the ART Aprilia of Aleix Espargarò .
The Spaniard from Team Power Electronics Aspar had the "luxury" of putting Valentino Rossi behind him, who was in great difficulty on the Valencian track. The next Yamaha rider (he will get back on his "beloved" M1 in the tests on Tuesday and Wednesday) is more than two seconds off pole and about four tenths behind his team-mate Nicky Hayden. This adventure with Ducati started badly on this track and is ending in the worst possible way. The test on Tuesday and Wednesday with the M1 will therefore be able to provide many answers, especially to him, who after two years with Ducati wants to understand if he can become a great protagonist again.
The best of the Italians with the CRTs was Michele Pirro, fifteenth with the FTR Honda of Team Gresini. The others are Danilo Petrucci seventeenth with the Ioda Suter BMW, Roberto Rolfo nineteenth with the ART of Team Speed Master and Claudio Corti, twenty-second with the Inmotec of Team Avintia Blusens.
Photos: Alex Farinelli
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Well done Pedrito, beautiful demonstration of strength and character. In recent days I have read the articles here (where I found the usual childish comments from the usual talkative anti-Redsists and anti-Italians who do not deserve replies) and in other sites such as eurosport motosprint and others again and the opinions in the various articles seem coherent and similar to me, unfortunately Rossi, who is not my favorite rider, has lost a bet with himself and with Ducati, both of whom come out defeated but with a better future perspective than when they began their relationship. The good Nicky also said it years ago, who in these two years has greatly appreciated the work done by Ducati on the references of Rossi and his team of engineers and says verbatim: "Valentino Rossi's departure from Ducati has been known for some time now. I was his teammate both in Honda and in Ducati, in very different circumstances and times, and I must say that he is a very classy person. Especially given how he has managed the difficulties of recent years, few with his titles won would have done the same. Then it's not fair to say that he didn't try. Just look at the number of Valentino Rossi falls. A rider falls when he pushes to the limit and exceeds it to try to improve." Therefore on Tuesday we will turn the page and a new challenge will begin so best wishes to all the riders and all the teams.