Written by:
SPEED Staff
SPEEDtv.com
Fiat Yamaha Team's Valentino Rossi (Photo: Yamaha Racing)
ยป More Photos
Valentino Rossi, who is looking for his 100th career victory tomorrow, took his second pole position of the season in the Netherlands today with a commanding display at the Assen TT circuit. His Fiat Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo filled the third grid spot after just missing out with his final flying lap. Dani Pedrosa will start from second whilst Casey Stoner, who is joint championship leader along with Rossi and Lorenzo, will head the second row. It is the fourth double front row for the Fiat Yamaha Team this season.
After yesterday’s bright sunshine today was overcast and cooler but it stayed dry and both riders had a useful morning practice, with Lorenzo running out on top and Rossi fourth. This afternoon’s qualifying saw the usual continuation of set-up work throughout the early stages before Rossi moved into pole with ten minutes to go, with Lorenzo second. The pair swapped positions once more before the Italian set his pole-clinching lap of 1’36.025 to retake pole with four minutes to go. Lorenzo was up on his team-mate’s time on his final flying lap but he dropped a few tenths on the last sector and finished the session 0.368 seconds adrift.
Rossi’s other pole of 2009 came at Motegi, when grid positions were in fact decided on free practice after qualifying was rained off. The World Champion’s last ‘proper’ pole was therefore at Indianapolis last year, on his way to a famous inaugural victory at the American track. Lorenzo meanwhile has qualified on the front row for all seven rounds so far this season.
Tomorrow’s 26-lap race begins at 1400 local time but with rain forecast the weather could prove a factor in the day’s proceedings once again.
Valentino Rossi Position: 1 Time: 1'35.025 Laps: 29
“This is a really good pole position because I’ve only had one other this season, at Motegi in strange conditions. I had a lot of traffic around me in the last few minutes so I had to be careful to judge exactly the right point to push, but I got it right and I was really happy with my great lap at the end. I feel good and I am very strong with the Bridgestone race tires but it’s going to be a hard race because the others are also very fast. We still have two or three points on the track where we could improve our performance a bit more so we still have a bit of work to do, but I am confident that we can make another great race. Of course we don’t know about the weather, but this is normal for Assen and we will just have to manage!”
