Already the fastest man on track in this morning's practice, the Australian showed he was ready to fight for his seventh pole of the season, and was the only rider capable of lapping in the 1'38's in a very tough qualifying session, with an air temperature of 31 degrees and a track temperature of 51.
Dani Pedrosa will start the race from fourth on the grid, just behind Casey, and next to him will be his team mate Andrea Dovizioso, in fifth position. Dani fought for the front row until the last second and narrowly missed it by three tenths. The Spaniard didn't feel at ease with the front tyre this afternoon but remains confident starting from the second row for the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix tomorrow, after he won in 2010 from fifth position.
Andrea Dovizioso made another small step forward in the qualifying improving his lap time by 3 tenths from the morning session. With higher temperatures this afternoon, the tyre wear caused issues that Andrea's team will look to improve for the race tomorrow and hope to fight for a podium.
Casey Stoner:
"I'm very happy with pole here in Indy, the team have been doing a great job under difficult conditions this weekend, but we will keep working right up until the last moment to try and get the set up right. Obviously without the bumps the track is a lot better, but the lack of consistency in the grip levels are causing issues, everyone is losing the front and it doesn't give you a lot of confidence, when you hit these patches the bike just seems to drop away from you. We haven't changed too much since FP1, just a few small steps and trying to get the front tyre to work more with such little grip, we are destroying it. For race distance we're looking pretty good, we did more than race distance on soft front and soft rear and had good stability, we'll wait and see what the conditions are like for tomorrow and decide from there."
Dani Pedrosa:
"We had some issues in the session with the front tyre, I didn't feel very comfortable with it and we couldn't get the most from it. I wasn’t going super fast and I missed the first row, but I'm not worried. We would like to be closer to Casey and Ben - they have been very fast and consistent, so I hope to find something more tomorrow morning in the warm up to help us fight for the podium. The race will be hard because it's very hot out there, and it will also be a big challenge for the tyres, but I hope we perform better in the race."
Andrea Dovizioso:
“Starting from the second row tomorrow isn’t too bad. It will be important to have a good start and ride consistently, trying to manage the tyres for the twenty eight lap race. The rear grip is too strong compared with the front which causes the front tyre to overheat, this remains the main issue so we need to continue working with the set up to rectify this. During qualifying the ground temperature reached fifty one degrees, these conditions are really demanding for the tyres. Concerning the pace, I have good rhythm and even though the gap to Casey remains too big for my liking, I think we can fight with Dani and Lorenzo for a podium position, this is our target and we will continue working to improve the machine for the race."
Repsol Honda press release.
