Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Saturday MotoGP Qualifying Results:

1. Makoto TAMADA, Honda, 1:37.933
2. Max BIAGGI, Honda, 1:38.069
3. John HOPKINS, Suzuki, 1:38.323
4. Marco MELANDRI, Yamaha, 1:38.367
5. Colin EDWARDS, Honda, 1:38.438
6. Valentino ROSSI, Yamaha, 1:38.479
7. Sete GIBERNAU, Honda, 1:38.588
8. Kenny ROBERTS, Suzuki, 1:38.740
9. Alex BARROS, Honda, 1:38.824
10. Carlos CHECA, Yamaha, 1:38.862
11. Shinya NAKANO, Kawasaki, 1:39.157
12. Loris CAPIROSSI, Ducati, 1:39.392
13. Norick ABE, Yamaha, 1:39.635
14. Jeremy McWILLIAMS, Aprilia, 1:39.815
15. Troy BAYLISS, Ducati, 1:39.836
16. Alex HOFMANN, Kawasaki, 1:39.852
17. Neil HODGSON, Ducati, 1:40.202
18. Ruben XAUS, Ducati, 1:40.466
19. Michel FABRIZIO, Aprilia, 1:40.896
20. Nobuatsu AOKI, Proton, 1:41.279
21. James ELLISON, Harris WCM, 1:42.284

Not qualified (Out 107%) 1:44.788

22. Chris BURNS, Harris WCM, 1:48.817



Combined Final MotoGP Qualifying Results:

1. TAMADA, 1:37.933
2. ROSSI, 1:38.036
3. GIBERNAU, 1:38.067
4. BIAGGI, 1:38.069
5. BARROS, 1:38.215
6. HOPKINS, 1:38.323
7. MELANDRI, 1:38.367
8. EDWARDS, 1:38.438
9. ROBERTS, 1:38.740
10. CHECA, 1:38.862
11. CAPIROSSI, 1:39.071
12. NAKANO, 1:39.157
13. BAYLISS, 1:39.279
14. ABE, 1:39.635
15. HODGSON, 1:39.677
16. McWILLIAMS, 1:39.815
17. HOFMANN, 1:39.852
18. XAUS, 1:40.259
19. FABRIZIO, 1:40.586
20. AOKI, 1:41.279
21. ELLISON, 1:42.284
22. BURNS, 1:43.293


More, from a press release issued by Dorna:

Tamada takes debut pole at Estoril

Makoto Tamada took pole position for the first time in his career in a dramatic end to the final qualifying session for the Grande Premio Marlboro de Portugal today. With a wet morning practice limiting grip on the Estoril track surface despite sunny and warm conditions in the afternoon there were barely any changes to the provisional grid as the riders struggled to lower their times from yesterday. However, a stunning last lap from Tamada saw him snatch pole position from Valentino Rossi with a record time of 1’37.933.

“I am very, very happy and I would like to give my thanks to Bridgestone, who came up with a great tyre,” said Tamada, who gave the Japanese rubber manufacturer their first win at Rio three races ago. “I am still a little bit worried about the weather but it should be okay and I am hopeful of a good race tomorrow.”

Rossi and Sete Gibernau both start from the front row despite failing to improve their times, Gibernau lapping over half a second off his pace from yesterday. Max Biaggi came up with a lap which threatened to dislodge his team-mate Tamada from pole position at the very last breath but fell short in the final section and the Italian had to settle for a second row start in fourth place.

Biaggi is joined on the second row by Honda colleague Alex Barros, who was fastest in the morning free practice despite crashing for the second time this weekend, and John Hopkins. Sixth place for the American youngster represents his best grid position for Suzuki since signing at the start of the 2003 season and equals the previous best grid of his career riding a Yamaha in 2002.

Marco Melandri climbed to seventh on the grid after surprising the large Portuguese crowd with a new colour scheme. The flamboyant Italian youngster appeared in ‘Spiderman’ style leathers, boots and helmet, with his Yamaha M1 also decorated in the colours of the comic book hero. Melandri is planning to auction off all the gear, including the fairing of the bike, in aid of the ‘Emergency’ charity, who provide medical relief to war and landmine victims around the world.

Melandri is joined on the third row of the grid by American pair Colin Edwards and Kenny Roberts on a Honda and Suzuki respectively, whilst his Yamaha colleague Carlos Checa completes the top ten. Ducati rider Loris Capirossi, set to make his 100th premier-class start, was another rider unable to improve his provisional time and he starts alongside Checa on the fourth row in eleventh place, just ahead of Shinya Nakano on the Kawasaki.

Dani Pedrosa upstaged his title rivals with a stunning performance in the final qualifying session for the 250cc race, clocking a record lap as both provisional pole holder Sebastian Porto and second placed Toni Elías failed to improve their times from yesterday. Pedrosa’s time of 1’41.417 was 0.221 seconds quicker than the previous record set by Porto and moved him from provisional third to the front of the grid for just the second time this season. Whilst Porto was relegated to second place and Elías third, Randy de Puniet hung on to the remaining front row spot, as fifth placed Alex de Angelis failed to improve his provisional time. De Angelis therefore remains at the head of the second row, where he is joined by Fonsi Nieto, Alex Debon and Manuel Poggiali.

Andrea Dovizioso remained untouched on pole position for the 125cc race and was the fastest rider in the final qualifying session despite failing to improve his provisional time. Casey Stoner was the only rider on the front row to do so and moved up one place to third, relegating Roberto Locatelli to fourth but failing to break up a first ever qualifying one-two for Kopron Team Scot Honda in Dovizioso and Simone Corsi. The main mover further down the grid was Mirko Giansanti, who moved up from thirteenth to sixth to join Marco Simoncelli, Jorge Lorenzo and Steve Jenkner on the second row.


More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki Racing Team:

NAKANO LEADS FUCHS KAWASAKI SQUAD AT ESTORIL

Fuchs Kawasaki rider, Shinya Nakano, qualified his Ninja ZX-RR in twelfth place for tomorrow’s Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril.

Nakano improved his best time by more than half second this afternoon, to secure a start from the fourth row of the grid tomorrow. Nakano’s Fuchs Kawasaki team-mate, Alex Hofmann, will start the 28-lap Portuguese Grand Prix from 17th position, after carving three-quarters of a second off his previous best time.

Final qualifying was run on a dry and warm track, which was a dramatic contrast to the rain-hit morning free practice session that reduced today’s dry track time to just one hour.

This left Hofmann and his hard working Kawasaki crew little time to solve the front-end set-up problems which had troubled the 24-year-old German yesterday during his first appearance on a four-stroke MotoGP bike at Estoril.

However, by the end of the session, Hofmann was much happier with his ZX-RR set-up for the race on the twisting and technical Estoril circuit. Despite the unsettling process of many pit stops for set-up changes, Hofmann’s efforts took him to within 0.5s of 13th on the grid.

Both Nakano and Hofmann recovered strongly after a troubled first day of qualifying, that had seen Nakano restricted to just one bike after exhaust problems sidelined his preferred ZX-RR machine.

Tomorrow’s race is the 11th round of the MotoGP World Championship, with both Nakano and Hofmann hoping for a repeat of this afternoon’s warm track conditions.

Shinya Nakano: 12th (1’39.157)
“I pushed really hard to get into the top ten, but just missed out in the end. It’s not ideal, but I guess a fourth row start is okay for tomorrow’s race. The front end braking stability is improved from yesterday, although today I lacked some control at the rear. It’s not such a big thing, but I will try to make further improvements with some slightly different engine and suspension settings in warm up tomorrow. After the rain the track felt like it had a little less grip, but I improved my time from yesterday, so I can’t complain. I think we have an excellent race tyre choice for this track tomorrow, as long as conditions stay dry.”

Alex Hofmann: 17th (1’39.852)
“I’m not exactly happy to be back in 17th position on the grid, but with only one hour of dry track time in which to overcome many set-up problems, it could have been a lot worse. At least it was dry this afternoon; if the rain had persisted into qualifying we’d have had some serious problems. It was a tough session, and we had to make a lot of big changes to solve the lack of front end feel I experienced yesterday. But, overall, I made good progress with the settings today, although my final fast lap was not perfect. The times around me on the grid are close, so this gives me some incentive for a competitive race and some points.”

Harald Eckl: Team Manager
“This was a productive day in terms of race set-up and tyre choice, and I think we have the race speed for Shinya to be challenging for a top ten finish. I’m also confident that Alex’s crew have found a set-up on the bike that will allow him to finish in the points tomorrow. Overall, today’s results show the potential of the ZX-RR at this time, and our development focus must continue to be on engine performance and power delivery. I’m hoping for a sunny day tomorrow, because our wet set-up, both bike and tyres, definitely needs more work.”


More, from a press release issued by Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha:

ROSSI ON FRONT ROW FOR PENULTIMATE EUROPEAN ROUND

Valentino Rossi will start from second position on the grid for tomorrow’s Portuguese Grand Prix, after being edged off pole position in the last minute of final qualifying in Estoril. His Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha team-mate Carlos Checa improved his grid position slightly and will start from 10th position tomorrow, at the head of the fourth row.

Checa was one of the first riders to better yesterday’s time, moving from 11th to ninth position with nine minutes left on the clock. As the session drew to a close Rossi still held onto pole position, but then Honda rider Makota Tamada stormed into the top slot with a lap of 1’37.933. Rossi made a small mistake on his flying lap shortly after and could not beat the Japanese rider’s time, leaving him in second place with yesterday’s lap of 1’38.036 still his fastest. Sete Gibernau (Honda) makes up the front row in third position after also failing to improve on yesterday’s time of 1’38.067. Meanwhile Checa was pushed back down one place to 10th, with a final fastest time of 1’38.862.

VALENTINO ROSSI (2nd, 1’38.036)

“The track is a little bit worse than yesterday because last night and this morning it was raining. The surface was dry this afternoon but it wasn’t the same as yesterday. I made a mistake with my qualifying tyre and I couldn’t improve the time from yesterday. However I’m in second position for the start and I’m fairly happy. We had a few problems with the tyres; the rear moves too much after a few laps, so I hope we can improve this for the race.”

CARLOS CHECA (10th, 1’38.862)

“I was not able to use my qualifying tyre as I had expected, so my best lap was done with one of the two possible race tyres I have for tomorrow. I’m still not 100 percent comfortable and we need to try to use the warm-up session tomorrow to try to get a better feeling. My pace is good, but the only handicap is that I will start from the fourth row. This could make turn one a little bit difficult.”

DAVIDE BRIVIO, TEAM DIRECTOR

“A strange day; one session wet, one dry. For sure on positive thing is that we improved our rain settings a lot and had a good session this morning. Yamaha and the team worked very well on this. In the afternoon, despite Valentino not being able to use qualifying tyres in the best way, he stayed on the front row and this is very important for tomorrow. Carlos unfortunately couldn’t move up much from yesterday so will have a difficult race, but I’m sure he’ll try his best to be on top.”


More, from a press release issued by Proton Team KR:

Aoki cuts a second at Estoril

Nobuatsu Aoki: 20th, 1:41.279

Proton Team KR rider Nobuatsu Aoki made the biggest improvement of any MotoGP rider in today’s final qualifying session for tomorrow’s Portuguese GP, cutting more than a second off his previous best lap time. But the Japanese rider remained in 20th position on the grid.

With team-mate Kurtis Roberts out of the race, recuperating from wrist and shoulder fractures sustained at Brno two weeks ago, Aoki is riding alone at the Estoril circuit, the slowest track of the season.

Yesterday he suffered oil control problems with both bikes, but today these were all but solved, with only one bike suffering a slight leak. Unfortunately, it was the machine he preferred, a factor in being unable to improve his grid position.

Another was a near collision with Honda rider Alex Barros, when he was going for a fast lap at the end of the session. Aoki survived without falling, but his chance of further improvement had gone.

Today began with torrential rain, and the free training session took place on a streaming track. With dry weather forecast for tomorrow, this cost all riders set-up time. In Aoki’s case, it meant that while he was able to select a promising race tyre from among the promising new Dunlop developments, he was unable to peform endurance tests. He was hoping for dry weather in tomorrow morning’s race warm-up, to verify his choice.

Tomorrow’s race is the 11th of 16 rounds this season. On the days after the race, Proton Team KR will stay to test, and will run the hybrid KTM-engined Proton KR for the V4 motor’s first serious track tests.

Nobuatsu Aoki
I think I could have made a bigger improvement – a few tenths anyway, except on my last lap Alex Barros passed me on the straight and then he pushed me almost off the track at the first corner. I had some oil problems with the bike with the engine that pushes better, so I had to use the other one, which wasn’t running so well, but in the afternoon I did find a good rear tyre. It might be the race tyre – the grip is better, but I wasn’t able to do enough laps to check the durability. We’ll have to see about that tomorrow morning.

Kenny Roberts – Team Principal
We had a bit of trouble in the dry sessions, and with the rain this morning that has put us a bit behind. We are starting to show some improvement, and it’s even quite competitive in the wet … but everybody else has moved on too.


More, from a press release issued by Camel Honda Racing Informarion:

Makoto Tamada on pole in Estoril. Max Biaggi on second row.
The yellow Camel Honda bikes steal the limelight

It was pole today for Makoto Tamada, the only rider to break the one minute 38 second barrier on the Estoril circuit today. With the fantastic victory at Rio under his belt since July, today Makoto took his Honda onto the most sought after spot on the grid and with it his first ever pole position in the MotoGP World Championships. It was a great result for the entire Camel Honda team, with Max Biaggi fourth and just behind Tamada on the second row, and ready to get involved in the show for what should be a spectacular and hard-fought race tomorrow.

Sito Pons – Camel Honda (Team Principal)
“This is a good team result here at the GP of Portugal, where both our riders showed they have a good rhythm and have ended the session with the fastest and fourth fastest times. I’m very confident about the race therefore and I’m hoping for some stable weather which would allow for a fantastic battle which wouldn’t be affected by the rain. I think the yellow RC211Vs of our Camel Honda team could really shine tomorrow.”

Max Biaggi – Camel Honda (Michelin Tyres) – 4th – 1’38.069
“I’m quite satisfied with today’s practices, even though I missed out on the front row by a whisker. Today the team and Honda together helped us improve the bike’s handling and getting a faster and more efficient weight transfer from the rear to the front. Perhaps this means we lose a bit in the braking zone, because the bike is a little more sharp, but the overall feeling is undoubtedly better. That’s why we were able to ride at a higher pace than yesterday. There’s still a couple of places on the track where I’m losing time though, and in tomorrow’s warm-up we will try to fine-tune the set-up a bit more. Of course, the big thing will be the weather, which like today could change radically in an instant, from rain to sun or vice versa. In any case, as ever I’ll give my all to do a good race.”

Gianluca Montiron – Camel Honda – (Makoto Tamada Team Manager)
“We have worked a great deal on the bike’s set-up even during the morning rain. In the afternoon session we were then able to optimise these settings, and that allowed Makoto to take his first ever pole in his career, but not only that, also to a good pace which will see him as one of the leading lights tomorrow. After a series of races having to make up ground due to a less than ideal grid position, Makoto is right at the front tomorrow, and he can run the race as he likes best, up there fighting with the leaders.”

Makoto Tamada – Camel Honda (Bridgestone Tyres) – 1st – 1’37.933
“I had already made sure of a good grid position yesterday in case it rained today. So then today I concentrated on improving the bike for the race. After this morning’s rain, we did a huge amount of work this afternoon and the results came straight away. The tyres I used to get pole were fantastic but I’ve also tried some interesting tyres for the race tomorrow. With the weather unstable today we haven’t been able to do an endurance test on them, but I’m confident about the race, I think it will go well. I’m starting from the very front, and I’ll be able to get involved in the battle with the top guys straight away which will be fun and that’s how I love to race.”


More, from a press release issued by Telefonica Movistar Honda/Gresini Racing:

HOMEWORK STILL TO DO IN THE WARM-UP

Sete Gibernau kept his date with the front row of the grid (9 out of 11 so far) at the Portuguese Grand Prix, which was swamped by even more Spanish fans than ever today. However, the Telefónica MoviStar rider was unable to improve his best time from yesterday and tomorrow’s 20-minute warm up session will be important to the preparations for the race. The final qualifying practice was a complicated affair, with several changes to the setting of the bike not giving the expected results. The session was openly contested, with the first four riders within a tenth of a second. American rider Colin Edwards knocked three tenths of a second off his time from yesterday and lines up on the third row of the grid.


SETE GIBERNAU (3rd, 1’38″067): “We haven’t completed the job as we would have liked today – it was a tough session, a lot of things were done but we haven’t made the necessary steps forward to find a good rhythm. Now we have! to sit down with the team and find out why because I actually felt better yesterday than I did today. We will have to work hard tonight and decide what solution to go for tomorrow, and Michelin will have to help us as well with the tyres. It will be a hard race and I just need to improve on the rhythm I had yesterday.”


COLIN EDWARDS (7th, 1’38″738): “We have changed a few small things on the bike, working from the base we found yesterday. I feel better on the bike but we’ve still got chattering, especially on race tyres. We still haven’t chosen the tyre for the race but I think we’ll go soft. Even though there’s less grip, at least the chattering isn’t so bad. I think the race rhythm will be around 39″5 but it will be tough to stick with the pace from half distance.”


FAUSTO GRESINI (team manager): “We had a bit of everything today – rain in the morning and sun in the afternoon. Sete’s crash in the free practice was nothing really, but even though we tried to improve the setting of the bike, the times didn’t come. Hopefully tomorrow we can find that little bit we are missing to go into the race with the best possible chance. Colin improved his time and will start from eighth but we are looking for more improvements from him in the morning.”


More, from a press release issued by Ducati Corse:

Ducati Marlboro men ready for tough race

Ducati Marlboro Team riders Loris Capirossi and Troy Bayliss completed this afternoon’s final qualifying session for the Marlboro Portuguese GP in 11th and 13th positions, suggesting that they have a tough day ahead of them tomorrow.
Yet again the weekend has been disrupted by changeable weather conditions which greatly complicate the art of achieving the best-possible bike set-up. Yesterday started damp and this morning’s session was run in pouring rain, the sun finally shining during final qualifying. Engineers reckon that this morning’s rain, which followed an overnight downpour, have robbed the track of some of its grip, which is why nine riders, almost half the grid, didn’t improve their Friday lap times this afternoon. Sixth of 11 races so far this year have been effected by rain.

“It’s been a strange and difficult day,” said Ducati Marlboro Team director Livio Suppo. “And it’s a pity that at the moment we seem to have stopped making the positive trend we had made at the last few races. From Assen onward we had been making improvements but we’ve not been able to maintain that progress here. Neither of our riders improved their times from the first qualifying session and Loris wasn’t as quick as last year when he got pole. But it was a strange session because a lot of other riders also didn’t improve on yesterday’s pace, which is very unusual. Anyway we will now check our data and go from there. Thanks as always to our riders who are still giving us 100 per cent as always. And thanks too for the continued support of our technical partners Michelin and Shell Advance.”

Capirossi preparing for 100th premier-class GP
Loris Capirossi this afternoon qualified for his 100th premier-class GP on the fourth row of the grid after failing to improve on his Friday best. Like many other riders the Ducati Marlboro Team man found the track more slippery than yesterday.

“I think the lack of dry track time has caused us more difficulties than the others because our bike is a bit difficult to set up at the moment,” explained the Italian. “Also the track was more slippery than it was yesterday. We tried a different set-up today but it didn’t give us what we wanted, so we went back to yesterday’s settings. Thus we hope to exploit tomorrow’s morning warm-up. If we make some good adjustments I think we can run up front, so long as the pace isn’t much faster that high one minute 39s.”

Bayliss has plans for morning warm-up
Ducati Marlboro Team rider Troy Bayliss will start the Marlboro Portuguese from the fifth row of the grid. But Ducati’s former World Superbike champion does have a few ideas to improve things in morning warm-up. Bayliss escaped unscathed from a minor spill in this morning’s wet session.

“This afternoon was a strange session, we struggled a bit,” said the Australian. “The track seemed to be down a little on grip, but that was the same for everyone. Tomorrow morning we’ll make a few changes to see if we can make the bike a bit better. We’ll make a few suspension adjustments and make one bike a bit longer because this track has got a few fast, bumpy corners which make the bike shake its head, making it difficult to put a good lap together. If we don’t make it better, it’s going to be a hard day.”


More, from a press release issued by Team Suzuki:

HOPKINS AIMS FOR ASSEN ROSTRUM
Team Suzuki Press Office, Estoril, Portugal – September 4, 2004.

Team Suzuki MotoGP rider John Hopkins put his head down and held his Suzuki GSV-R’s throttle wide to set third-fastest time in the final timed qualifying session for tomorrow’s Portuguese GP, making the most of the bright sunshine to slash half-a-second off his previous best lap time in a session when almost half the riders failed to improve.

Team-mate Kenny Roberts Jr. made an improvement of three tenths to place eighth in the session, but was left with more work to do after niggling problems spoiled his progress.

Hopkins ended up sixth overall, taking yesterday’s times into account and will start from the second row of the grid. This is a significant boost after he had been among the fastest riders in the dry at the previous round at Brno, but had to start from 21st position because of rain in the timed qualifying sessions.

The 21-year-old Anglo-American rider was highly satisfied with his position after spending time in the session circulating with the world championship leaders Gibernau and Rossi and finding no problems in matching their pace. Roberts still had work to do with machine settings with the wet morning session proving costly to progress in this respect.

Roberts was one row back, placing ninth overall, with a brainstorming technical session ahead to try to make up for lost time in his troubled practice sessions.

Tomorrow’s race, round the track with the slowest average speed of the year, is expected to take place in dry weather. The 11th of 16 World Championship rounds, the Portuguese GP, marks the end of the European season.

JOHN HOPKINS – Sixth position, 1:38.479:

“We put a good session together this afternoon. We made some changes from yesterday that definitely helped out and I’m definitely thankful it was dry in the afternoon so we could test them properly. I made two or three runs adding up to 18 or 20 laps on the race tyres we picked out yesterday to check them out and I was able to run low-end 39s and a couple of 40s consistently. On one of my runs I was following Rossi and had no problems to stay with him. Another time I caught and passed Gibernau. These are the guys I want to be racing with tomorrow. It’s nice to start on the second row instead of 21st. I’ll aim to get away with the lead group and see if I can end up on the podium.”

KENNY ROBERTS Jr. – Ninth position, 1:38.740:

“We’ve had a lot of problems with things this weekend that sneaked up and caught us off guard. Nobody’s to blame because that’s racing, but it meant I wasn’t able to put any runs together. I’m not happy with the bike on race tyres. We’ve had very little dry time and at one point I was down to one bike and we didn’t have things on that bike that we thought we had. We’re going to have a meeting right now to see what we can do. There were some issues with the ignition. It was doing some funny things that were really throwing me. I need the back wheel to turn at the same rate I am opening the throttle and at the moment it’s not doing that so I’m not happy with that.”

GARRY TAYLOR – Team Manager:

“John is finally putting his injuries behind him and showing the strong form and potential he did during winter testing. Kenny is very close behind in spite of having had a lot of frustration in his practice sessions. Both are starting a lot nearer the front than at Brno and I’m sure they can both build on that.”


More, from a press release issued by MS Aprilia:

McWilliams makes big strides in Portugal


MS Aprilia Racing’s Jeremy McWilliams is confident he can add to his 2004 MotoGP world championship points tally in tomorrow’s Estoril GP.

The British rider knocked 0.899s off his provisional time to end up in 16th position on the grid for tomorrow’s 28-lap clash at the 4.1km Portuguese venue. Only one other rider managed to slash more time from their provisional best, and McWilliams was much more upbeat after he’d struggled to qualify 19th yesterday. Today he was only denied a top 15 grid placing in the closing seconds.

McWilliams said: “That was more like it. I was so far off yesterday I thought there was no way we would be able to turn it around. I would not have believed we could have got so close to a decent set-up. At least I’m not praying for rain anymore like I was yesterday. We took it steady in the rain this morning and didn’t take any risks, and after this afternoon I’m happy that we’ve a set-up that will let me challenge for the points no matter what the conditions are like for the race. I’m still struggling with a bit of chatter in T3 and T4. It is particularly bad in the last section. I just get chatter in the middle of the corner, especially in the slower stuff.”

Speaking about an experimental Alpinestars leather suit, which McWilliams tested in both morning free practice sessions this weekend, he said: “It has lots of sensors that are designed to monitor body motion. They gauge how much force the body is under inside the leathers. There are also impact sensors at the crash points where you are most likely to hit the body in a crash. I can’t think why they gave it to me to test.”

Italian Aprilia debutant Michel Fabrizio is hoping he can claim a top 15 finish on his one-off RS3 Cube ride. This morning’s torrential downpours only served to steepen the learning curve for the 19-year-old, who had never ridden the Cube in wet conditions. He’s never used Michelin’s wet tyres before either, and in this afternoon’s dry final qualifying, he dropped down to 19th position. “It wasn’t a bad second day, “said the former European Superstock champion. “I missed the chance to better my time on the qualifying tyre and I lost the tow with some of the riders in front of me. I pushed to improve my time but I just couldn’t manage it. I am still satisfied and I’ll start the race in a positive frame of mind. I just hope to be able to learn a lot and that will be the end of my adventure – for the time being it will be anyway.”


More, from a press release issued by d’Antin Ducati:

A DIFFICULT DAY FOR HODGSON AND XAUS

Estoril (Portugal) – The d´Antin MotoGP riders were unable to improve their times as hoped in the second day of qualifying at the Portuguese Grand Prix today. Neil Hodgson ended up in fifteenth place with teammate Rubén Xaus eighteenth on the grid, meaning a fifth and sixth row start respectively for the duo.

The morning free practice session took place in the wet, when suddenly the climate changed completely for the afternoon qualifying session, with bright sunshine throughout, but the timesheets didn’t see many changes until the final few moments.

NEIL HODGSON only managed to improve his impressive Friday time by a few thousandths of a second, “We’ve tried many things and aimed to change the set-up, but we’ve gone in the wrong direction and we didn’t get the results we wanted to. I’m a little unhappy really because everything went well yesterday and I hoped to make more progress today, although I’m confident that tomorrow things will go right again.”

RUBEN XAUS meanwhile was unable to improve his qualifying time from Friday, “I’m a little frustrated because we had a few technical hitches and I spent a lot of time in the pit garage. I couldn’t do that much because you lose your concentration a bit after that and when I finally got out and tried to set a good time, there was a lot of traffic on the track, and it was impossible to get a good lap in. I was very hopeful before this session and that hope still remains for tomorrow.”


More, from a press release issued by John Hopkins’ publicist:

HOPKINS MATCHES CAREER-BEST QUALIFYING RESULT AT PORTUGUESE GP

ESTORIL, Portugal – Suzuki’s young gun John Hopkins matched his career-best MotoGP qualifying performance by earning a second row starting position for Sunday’s Portuguese Motorcycle Grand Prix at Estoril. Hopkins’ time of one minute, 38.323-seconds on the 4.2-kilometer Estoril c