Jerez GP grid: Pedrosa from Rossi; 1s covers top 15!

Dani Pedrosa delighted a near 100,000-strong home crowd to claim pole position for tomorrow’s Spanish GP at Jerez, a fraction ahead of Valentino Rossi.

In a thrilling hour-long session, Pedrosa claimed top spot with a best time of 1:39.402 as the top 15 riders on the grid were split by less than a second. Italian Loris Capirossi, who won last year’s Jerez GP, will start 15th on the fifth row of the grid - yet he was only 0.989s off pole position!

Pedrosa’s best lap was 0.4s slower than Capirossi’s previous qualifying benchmark set on the 990cc factory Ducati a year ago, but it was enough to edge out Yamaha rival Rossi by just 0.051s.

Today’s result reversed the outcome of the recent pre-season test at Jerez. Pedrosa lost out to Rossi on that occasion, but gained some sort of revenge this afternoon, though his best time was nearly a second slower than he managed on qualifying rubber at the test (when he clocked a best of 1:38.527).

Pedrosa was fastest on race tyres before most of the field opted to run qualifiers in the last 15 minutes when he clocked a 1:40.899s to overhaul early pace-setter Casey Stoner.

Pedrosa, 20, said: “Tomorrow will be a very difficult race because the lap times are very close. Being on the front row was important and we will try tomorrow to make a great race. The set-up of the bike is not so bad so we will see.”

Rossi was content with second place after enduring troubles on race tyres throughout the practice sessions. On his first soft Michelin qualifying tyre he clocked a best of 1:39.878 that put him top of the timesheets for a short time.

Fiat Yamaha team-mate Colin Edwards and Stoner then went faster before Rossi clocked his best of 1:39.453 on his second and last qualifier to head the leaderboard again before Pedrosa’s late intervention denied him a 47th career pole.

Rossi, 28, said: “I am happy because the lap time is quite good. I know it was possible to make a better lap time because last month at the test I was able to go one second faster. The first row was our target but the pace on race tyres we have struggled with yesterday and this morning.

We found a good tyre for the race this afternoon and the tyres will be the big issue tomorrow for the race. The last ten laps will be very hard and very difficult for everybody.” Completing the front row is Spanish veteran Carlos Checa, who finally made a big breakthrough on qualifying tyres today.

The 34-year-old has dominated for most of the weekend and he was fastest in the first three free practice sessions. His struggle with Michelin’s soft qualifying tyres appeared to have struck again as he was left languishing down in 16th place until right at the death when he suddenly leapt to the front row, relegating Edwards to fourth.

Checa said: “I believe we will be fighting for the podium tomorrow. I am happy because I have struggled with the qualifying tyres. I had problems all through the winter and in Qatar at the first race so I’ve got to be happy.”

Edwards will head up the second row in front of world championship leader Stoner. Both had led the session at one point while factory Ducati rider Stoner shaved 0.3s off his best qualifying time from a few weeks ago at the Jerez test.

John Hopkins, who has revealed he may require surgery on a damaged ligament in his right wrist (suffered in a testing crash at Qatar last month), completes the second row. Reigning world champion Nicky Hayden’s nightmare defence to his world crown continued as he could only finish 11th fastest and will start tomorrow’s 27-lap encounter from the fourth row.

The 25-year-old is still being plagued by front-end problems with his factory RC212V Honda, and a modified chassis he has tried in Jerez has made little difference in improving his confidence.

Times

1 D PEDROSA 1:39.402
2 V ROSSI 1:39.453
3 C CHECA 1:39.460
4 C EDWARDS 1:39.486
5 C STONER 1:39.524
6 J HOPKINS 1:39.625
7 S NAKANO 1:39.632
8 T ELIAS 1:39.660
9 M MELANDRI 1:39.722
10 K ROBERTS 1:39.727
11 N HAYDEN 1:39.834
12 R DE PUNIET 1:39.883
13 A BARROS 1:40.196
14 C VERMEULEN 1:40.328
15 L CAPIROSSI 1:40.391
16 O JACQUE 1:40.405
17 M TAMADA 1:40.617
18 A HOFMANN 1:40.710
19 K AKIYOSHI 1:41.202
20 S GUINTOLI 1:41.219

Honda's Daytona 200 Woes

Race fans were stunned during this weekend's Daytona 200 when all four top-running Hondas, the factory bikes of Miguel DuHamel and Jake Zemke along with the Erion machines of Josh Hayes (defending Formula Extreme champion) and Aaron Gobert, were all stricken with fuel problems.

Duhamel and Zemke appeared to run out of fuel two laps before they were scheduled to pit, leaving them in the category of 'DNF'. Meanwhile, Hayes and Gobert were both forced to pit more often or earlier than expected to deal with the same issue, Hayes' bike apparently running out of gas just as he entered pit lane.

After the race, the teams were somewhat unclear on where the blame lay for this disastrous quadruple-whammy, but Duhamel stated definitively that his bike did not technically 'run out of gas'.

Instead, he claimed, there was still enough gas in the tank to complete the remaining two laps, but a problem with the fuel pump meant that said gas wasn't getting picked up and pumped to the injectors.

For the benefit of our readers who don't know much about fuel pumps, let's talk a little bit about whether or not Duhamel's statement is actually possible. Every fuel pump has a 'pickup', a point where it sucks up fuel to be pumped to the injectors.

Now, if the bottom of your gas tank looked like a big soup bowl, with the pickup in the middle, you can imagine that in certain situations (cornering, for example) fuel might slosh away from the pickup, 'starving' the fuel system and causing the motor to die.

This is why every form of racing vehicle that is ever likely to see high G-loads (which is to say, all of them) uses some form of 'sump' - a sump being a restricted area designed to keep fuel from sloshing away from the fuel pump pickup - thus preventing fuel starvation during hard cornering/acceleration/braking.

So what the heck happened with Duhamel, Zemke and co.'s fuel systems? Ruling out the possibility of simultaneous failure of the electric fuel pumps (a near-impossible coincidence), the only way the bikes could starve for fuel with gasoline still remaining in the tank would be improper design - either of the fuel pump pickup, or of the area of the gas tank designed to keep the fuel contained around said pickup during hard cornering.

Or they just ran out of gas.

BMW Off-Road Intentions Confirmed By Patent Application

With rumors, and supposed spy photos of BMW's 450 enduro circulating for a few weeks now, we come across a German-language patent application by BMW for a single-cylinder off-road bike, and related innovations.

It now appears relatively certain that BMW will be marketing at least one off-road machine within a year, and competing, both with prototypes and, ultimately, with production machines, in various off-road events and series both in Europe and the United States (such as the U.S. GNCC series). BMW wants a slice of the off-road market, and it is coming soon to take it.

Stoner takes the win in Qatar

Casey Stoner has won the first MotoGP race of the season after a spectacular battle with Valentino Rossi.

The two riders completely outpaced the rest of the field at the Qatar circuit but it was Stoner's Ducati that simply amazed everyone with its incredible top speed.

The two bikes were set up completely differently with the Ducati roaring down the straights while Rossi's Yamaha was able to outbrake and out-corner anyone making for a very exciting race.

The two riders swapped places an incredible amount of times but Stoner had such a strong advantage on the straight - as much as 20kph faster - the Rossi simply could not stay in front and had to settle for second place.

Dani Pedrosa managed to mix with the top two for the first half of the race and like Stoner could outpull rossi on the straight, but the Yamaha's shear braking power always saw Rossi slide back through going in to the first corner.

Halfway through the race Pedrosa's crew told him to switch to a softer fuelling map and from that point on the front two riders began to pull away leaving Pedrosa to fight for his third position with John Hopkins on the Rizla Suzuki.

New World Champion Nicky Hayden struggled all weekend and only managed to finish the race in eighth place.

Bayliss on Australian pole

Troy Bayliss put in an impressive Superpole lap to secure pole position for Sunday’s two WSB races. Bayliss set a new lap record in this mornings second qualifying session and although he couldn’t match that time due to high winds during Superpole, he still posted a lap good enough for pole.

James Toseland made it a close run thing finishing just 5/100th of a second behind Bayliss to take second. Although the 26 year old Brit didn’t top the time sheets he goes in to tomorrow’s races in confident mood as he remains the man to beat on race tyres.

In the one hour long Free Practice session before Superpole Toseland completed a 15 lap run including three 1m32s laps with the remainder in low 1m 35’s an achievement un matched by his rivals. With tyre wear set to play a crucial role in the races, Toseland and his Ten Kate team look well placed for a successful race day.

One factor that could change the outcome is the weather with rain forecast on race day. Superpole supreme Troy Corser was unable to match his Qatar pole position after a big gust of wind nearly caused him to crash on the approach to turn one.

Corser recovered to set the third fastest time and will go into tomorrow’s race in high spirits after an encouraging long run during Free Practice. Nori Haga rounded out the front row but has already predicted a tough race revealing that he has been unable to find a race tyre that will last more than ten laps, potentially a big problem as the race is 22 laps.

Max Biaggi has had a quiet weekend so far after his sensational debut last weekend in Qatar. The Italian has been unable to match the pace of the leaders and will start the two races from fifth spot where he’ll be looking to make a good start and avoid getting tangled up with Nieto, Neukirchner and Xaus who he shares the second row with.

Aussie Karl Muggeridge remains a question mark for tomorrow’s races after suffering a high speed crash at the Hayshed when he lost control on oil dropped by his team-mate Josh Brookes. Muggeridge was initially unconscious and taken to local hospital suffering from a painful left ankle, but at this stage it is unclear if it is broken or not.