Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa took pole position in the Grand Prix of Italy today with his teammate Casey Stoner in 5th.
Pedrosa broke the circuit best lap (set last year by Stoner 1'48.034) by almost eight tenths of a second with a time of 1'47.284 on his final lap. He will be looking to make a strong start and repeat his dominating 2010 race weekend, where he also took pole and proceeded to lead every lap of the race setting a new lap record.
It was not such a good afternoon for Casey Stoner who failed to make the front row of the grid for only the second time this season (Jerez 2012, 5th). Stoner has been having a tough weekend setting up his RC213V and was unable to find a setting he was comfortable with in qualifying. His time of 1'47.689 puts him four tenths behind team mate Dani, and he starts on the second row of the grid for tomorrow's 23 lap race.
Dani Pedrosa
"We definitely made another step forward today and to get the pole position here is great, although to always be on the front row is what really matters to me. We had a good practice in the morning and managed the timing well in qualifying to be on track when everybody started to improve the lap times. It will be a very hard race for sure, it's very hot out there and the race pace will be also very high looking at the lap times this afternoon. I'm quite happy with the set up of my bike, we've had better grip today and I'm pretty confident, but we have to keep very focused and push at the maximum because Lorenzo has an incredible pace."
Casey Stoner
"This weekend we're just missing something, especially in the longer corners we just can't get the bike to turn, we can't stop the rear chatter in the exit and in the end we can't put the lap together. We're losing some tenths in each sector, if we get the bike sorted for one sector then everything should come together easily but it's been a difficult weekend so far. We still have tomorrow morning to improve our set up and sort out a few of our weaker points, if we do then we might be in with a chance. I'm not too worried about second row, we'll hopefully get a good start, see what we can do and try to hang with the guys at the front, but honestly at the moment Jorge and Dani are on a different level."
Repsol Honda Press Release
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