Nicky Hayden will start a MotoGP race from the front row of the grid for the first time in Ducati Team colours tomorrow after a sensational qualifying performance at Indianapolis. The American rider’s fastest ever lap of his home circuit moved him into provisional pole position with just a few minutes remaining of this afternoon’s session but he was nudged out to third place by late efforts from his compatriot Ben Spies and series leader Jorge Lorenzo.
Casey Stoner will start from directly behind his team-mate after qualifying sixth fastest. The Australian found a good pace on race tyres but did not experience the same leap in quality as Hayden when switching to a softer tyre, so despite being amongst the pacesetters all weekend he lines up on the second row.
NICKY HAYDEN (Ducati Team) 3rd (1’40.336): “I finally got my first front row with Ducati – it only took a year and a half! We’re really happy for it though especially because it’s so important for tomorrow’s race. If I want to be running up front tomorrow I have to be there from the start and I told Juan [Martinez – Nicky’s crew chief] before the session that we were due a front row and today was the day to get it. We found a decent setting on race tyres and when we put the soft compound in the jump was so big it felt like the kind of qualifying tyres we used to have. To have two American’s on the front row is great for MotoGP in this country and for everybody who supports it over here. Hopefully it brings out a big crowd tomorrow and we’ll do our best to put on a good show.”
CASEY STONER (Ducati Team) 6th (1’40.664): “I’m not very happy with this afternoon’s qualifying session, we expected to be a little faster. During the session we struggled to find the grip with the hard tyre so we spent a lot of time trying to fix it and unfortunately we tried a couple of different things and then when we switched immediately to soft tyres we had trouble with the setting and we didn’t have a lot of feeling. I’m a little disappointed for sure but I think we can expect a little bit better race pace, so I’m confident enough for tomorrow. I think we should have a bit better race pace than some of the riders in front of us today.”
Circuit Record: Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha – 2009), 1’40.152 – 151.545 km/h
Best Pole: Dani Pedrosa ( Honda – 2009), 1’39.730 – 152.186 km/h