From a press release issued by Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha:

ROSSI TAKES FIRST POLE POSITION OF SEASON WITH YAMAHA

This afternoon’s final MotoGP qualifying session was fought out in perfect sunshine with reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi taking pole position at the Welkom Circuit in South Africa. He will line up at the front of the new-look grid for the first race of the season tomorrow, with three riders per row instead of four. His Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha team-mate Carlos Checa had a difficult afternoon, unable to find a good feeling on his qualifying tyres and finishing 14th fastest. He will start from the fifth row of the grid tomorrow.

The timesheets remained largely unchanged for most of the session, with Rossi’s provisional pole time from yesterday of 1:33.353 keeping him up front until Kawasaki rider Shinya Nakano took the lead with nine minutes to go, with a time of 1:33.347. The top spot then changed hands several times over the course of a few minutes as Honda riders Max Biaggi, Sete Gibernau and Nicky Hayden all put in flying laps, before Rossi reclaimed pole position with just three minutes to go. The 25-year-old smashed Gibernau’s record from last year before bettering his time again on the next lap with a final best lap of 1:32.647. A late charge from Gibernau after Rossi had entered the box was enough for second place (1:32.682), whilst Biaggi took the final front-row spot with a time of 1:32.919.

VALENTINO ROSSI (1st, 1:32.647)

“That was a fantastic lap, I’m really happy to get pole position! We’ve done something that nobody expected in a really short time, in just a matter of months. I gave 100 percent and I think this is a great moment for the sport and especially for everyone at Yamaha. This is probably one of the greatest moments of my career so far but now we need to win a race. Tomorrow is going to be very difficult, I don’t know how the bike will perform on race tyres and we still have more work to do. We’re not going to change anything on the bike for tomorrow. Anyway let’s see for tomorrow and hopefully I’ll sleep OK tonight!”

CARLOS CHECA (14th, 1:33.884)

“I couldn’t get the lap time I wanted and I cannot really say why that is; I just couldn’t get a good feeling with the soft tyres. In the beginning with the race tyres it wasn’t too bad, but I’m over-steering a little bit too much. I can’t make any big changes for tomorrow but I’m quite confident that I can at least make some consistent laps during the race. It will be difficult starting from row five, but let’s see what happens.”

JEREMY BURGESS, ROSSI’S CREW CHIEF

“I’m not too surprised, I knew we’d worked really hard, that everyone at Yamaha had worked very hard, and Valentino of course, and I expected we’d be near the front. However these are early days, this is one race of sixteen and this is our first pole position. But as a team it’s great to be in this position today and now we have to turn that into something positive tomorrow. Because this bike is new for us at every circuit we’ve been working and changing a little bit more than in the past in order to get the best out of the machine, particularly suspension and transmission. We’ve seen the Yamaha’s potential in the past and now we need all the components to be in the right place at once; the bike, the rider and the team.”

FRONT ROW

1. VALENTINO ROSSI (ITA) GAULOISES FORTUNA YAMAHA 1:32.647
2. Sete Gibernau (SPA) Telefonica Movistar Honda 1:32.682
3. Max Biaggi (ITA) Camel Honda 1:32.919


SECOND ROW

4. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda Team 1:33.098
5. Colin Edwards (USA) Telefonica Movistar Honda 1:33.111
6. Shinya Nakano (JPN) Kawasaki Racing Team 1:33.276


14. CARLOS CHECA (SPA) GAULOISES FORTUNA YAMAHA 1:33.884