Written by:
SPEED Staff
SPEEDtv.com
Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) and teammate Andrea Dovizioso will be joined by Toni Elias (San Carlo Honda Gresini) on the second row for Sunday’s Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix, the eighth round of the MotoGP World Championship. Pedrosa and Dovizioso had been atop the time charts for the first quarter of the session, then spent the rest of it fighting to get back on top. Pedrosa ended the hour .203s off the front row with Dovizioso only .022 farther back and Elias sixth at a gap of .011s.
The qualifying session, held on a sun-drenched afternoon at Laguna Seca, the tortuous track located not far from the Pacific Ocean, was the most dramatic of the year, with two of the top three qualifiers ending the hour with frightening high-sides. Pole position went to Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) before he suffered a dislocated right shoulder and right foot injury in a violent highside late in the session. He plans to test his race fitness in the Sunday morning warm-up. Teammate Valentino Rossi was second fastest, while Casey Stoner (Ducati) finished third, though he also ended qualifying with a high-side. Stoner was able to walk back into his garage under his own power uninjured.
The end of the session was equally dramatic for the Honda runners, with their positions changing hands repeatedly. With less than a minute to go, Elias jumped up to fourth, but only briefly. Six seconds after the checkered flag, Dovizioso stole fourth with his best lap of the day. Then came Pedrosa, who would leapfrog both with the final of his 34 laps of the 3.61k, 11-turn road course.
Because injuries prevented him from racing at Laguna Seca last year, Pedrosa was starting over. Two years ago he was on the first generation Honda RC212V and on Michelin tires. Today he was on the latest spec RC212V, which he only began racing last week in Assen, and control Bridgestones. The new chassis provides better front-end stability and feedback, which are essential on a track that features a 91 meter elevation change and a number of hard braking downhill corners.
