Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner gets pole for the Gran Premio d’Italia – MotoGP news
Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner managed the pole position for the upcoming Gran Premio d’Italia at the Mugello circuit.
Stoner’s teammates, Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa also impressed in the qualifier practice session for the Italian event on the MotoGP calendar.
The Aussie, Stoner, will be hoping to extend his points lead to strengthen his 2011 title winning status. Stoner has been blazing fast this season and scored his fifth pole seat and overall a seventh first row start.
Stoner said, “After the two sessions yesterday and also in FP3 this morning, we weren't too happy with the set up we had, so we were looking to utilise all of this afternoon's session. However, we made some changes to my second bike, which I made my fastest
lap on and we've come out with a fantastic bike.”
Stoner seemed glad to start the race from pole position. Surprisingly, he made it to pole with used set of tyres. The start of the session was held in slight downpour which made it difficult to get the exact idea for performance on the track.
The Aussie chose soft compound slicks to start the session until the rain started. In his opinion, he started to get the feel on the wet tarmac which was not very different to dry conditions.
Dovizioso said, “I’m fairly satisfied with fourth position after the rain created strange track conditions, and I'm happy with our overall pace. Starting from the second row is fine on this track as there is a long straight before turn one.”
The Italian homeboy in the Repsol squad is working hard to impress his fans at Italy, as for a short while he topped the time sheet for qualifying session. Dovizioso made some changes in his RCV setup to enhance the feel of the machine. He also wanted to
run some laps with hard compound slicks as the soft tyres wear out quicker.
Making his comeback after missing out on three events, Dani Pedrosa felt easy to ride in wet conditions as it helps to reduce the effort in quick manoeuvres. The Spaniard ran some god laps in QP, eventually finishing eighth for the race grid.
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