Jorge Lorenzo - Photo Credit: Yamaha
Jorge Lorenzo was relieved to come through a tricky qualifying session with his second consecutive pole position. The championship leader thought conditions were dangerous and conducive to mistakes but still had enough to edge out Dani Pedrosa.
“We are very happy with this pole position because it was a strange session. There were a lot of water patches and it was very dangerous. You had to pay a lot of attention, it would have been easy to crash and get injured. Anyway we start in first position so let's see what happens in the race. Thank you to the team for working hard to keep giving the right set up in changing conditions.”
Yamaha teammate Ben Spies agreed with Lorenzo's assessment of the conditions and was happy to avoid a crash after his slip-up in Qatar. The American will start sixth which he thought was a good result under the circumstances.
“It was actually a pretty scary session for everybody, the track started out damp and then got better but there were some damp patches right where you wanted to be. It was the first dry session of the weekend for us so we had to ride hard. We had a setting on the bike we hadn't tested here but thought on paper it would be better, some things were good and some bad. We mistimed the tyres a little bit just because we saw a black cloud coming in so I think we could have been on the front row. I didn't want to make a mistake though and throw another bike down the track and make the guys rebuild it! We're pretty much up there, for how bad the conditions were I'm happy to come out unscathed and on the second row.”
Team Director Massimo Meregalli is confident ahead of Sunday's race but admits a lot will hinge on the weather which has been changing throughout the weekend.
“It was impressive how much Jorge wanted the pole, I think it's a good signal for tomorrow. Ben had a good feeling for the bike by the end of the practice and put a lot of effort in. We're quite confident for tomorrow; a lot will depend on the weather forecast. The team has also been working really hard to keep up with the different conditions and keep delivering a competitive bike.”
