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MotoGP Le Mans qualifying timings and rider quotes

May 18, 2013

Marc Marquez

“Qualifying went very well. After FP3, in which we had a small front end crash and I lost my confidence a little, I was back on it immediately. It was hard to heat up the tyres, but that was the same for everyone. I think that’s the reason why there were so many crashes. I am very happy, because I think that we had a good session and have a good pace. Tomorrow we will try to give 100% and see if we are fortunate enough to have a dry race. If it is a wet one, then we just have to do as well as we can.”

Jorge Lorenzo

“Our pace is very good, much better than Jerez where I did two laps and then in the third or fourth lap it was impossible to keep the same pace. Here in this track with the improvement we made with the bike it’s much more easy to keep a constant pace so I’m much more satisfied. I tried to make a perfect lap, it was ok, but Marc was just slightly faster than me. I don’t know what will happen if it rains tomorrow because we haven’t tried it in the wet. Last year it was ok, but every year it’s different so I don’t know what to expect. I would prefer a dry race. If it rains though it can be a possibility to recover some points if we don’t make a mistake.”

Andrea Dovizioso

“ I’m pleased because we’re closer than we have been at the other tracks with our fastest lap, but especially our pace. I managed to do my best time on the final lap of my long run, which is nice. We’re pretty good with the setup, and although we still have to work on the details, I’m happy to be so close.”

Dani Pedrosa

“The afternoon practice sessions were difficult. I crashed in qualifying then had to go back to the garage and only had a little time left on the clock when I got back out on track. I wasn’t able to make the best use of the session, but at least I was able to clock a fairly decent time and place sixth. It is a pity, because we could have been much higher up the grid. For tomorrow we will have to try to get a good start, come back up through the field and have a good race.”

Alvaro Bautista

“Today was a difficult day, especially this morning because we tried some things with the set-up to resolve the issues we had yesterday but they didn’t work. We made some progress with the electronics and then went back a step with the set-up but at the end of the morning session I had a crash on cold tyres that was quite heavy. Thankfully I wasn’t really hurt apart from a blow to my chest, which was painful this afternoon. I couldn’t ride at 100% for qualifying but I felt more confident with the front so I am looking forward to riding it tomorrow. We have another thing to try in the warm-up with the electronics and then we will see what the weather does for the race. ”

Valentino Rossi

“Unfortunately today was a worse day compared to yesterday. We started quite badly this morning because we had some problems with the rear tyre so we struggled very much in the practice. We had a lot of question marks so we wanted to try the same setting this afternoon. In fact the tyre had a problem because this afternoon it was not so bad. My rhythm and pace for the race is quite good, unfortunately especially Lorenzo, Marquez and Pedrosa are a bit faster. Like the other races, in the qualifying I am unable to do what I want, when I try to push more I create some problems with the bike. The other riders are better than me to use the extra grip from the new tyre, so I have to start from the third row. My rhythm is not so bad so we have to try to fix something.”