Jorge Lorenzo will start tomorrow’s Spanish GP at Jerez de la Frontera from the second row of the grid after going fourth quickest in qualifying. The Mallorcan rider, who was fifth this morning in FP3 to go straight through into the afternoon’s Q2 session, just missed out on a front row start in third by 0.013s.
Andrea Dovizioso on the other hand will have to start round 4 of the championship from row 3. The Italian placed eleventh in the morning’s FP3 session and then topped the timesheets in Q1. In Q2 he set a time of 1’38.029, just a whisker away from his team-mate, but had to settle for eighth place on the grid.
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – 4th (1’37.969)
“I’m very pleased, not only with my lap time but also with the way we’ve been working since we arrived here in Jerez. We did a great qualifying session and just missed out on the front row by a fraction. With the new parts that Ducati has brought here in Spain we have in part resolved our problems: the Desmosedici GP is not as nervous as before and I can get the best out of its strong points: we must continue in this way. The race is going to be very tight and complicated for everyone, but tomorrow I want to give my all. We must keep focussed and try and make a great start to get ahead of the leading group right from the start.”
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 8th (1’38.029)
“It’s a pity about the third row, but I’m very happy with the work of the guys in the team. We were in a bit of difficulty this morning but we were able to make the right decisions and improve the bike once again. Now we have good pace and can even think about fighting for the podium. It’s not easy to interpret the pace of our rivals because we don’t know who will use the hard or the medium tyres in the race, and not many riders have done comparative tests. In qualifying I went well but unfortunately I didn’t do a perfect lap and I will have to start in eighth place: however now we’ve resolved the situation with our pace, I reckon we can have a say in the outcome of tomorrow’s race.”
