Pedrosa on French GP pole

From Repsol Honda

Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden put in storming performances during Saturday afternoon’s French qualifying session, Pedrosa taking pole position and Hayden snatching a second-row start for the fifth round of the MotoGP World Championship.

Pedrosa came out on top at the end of a thrilling hour of action, the World Championship leader making crucial chassis adjustments to outpace his closest rival by just over one tenth of a second with a time of 1:32.647.

“I’m very satisfied with today’s result," Pedrosa said. "It’s my first pole position of the season and that’s especially good at this track because it’s very important to have a good grid position here. Today we made some small chassis adjustments, fine-tuning the machine.

"This afternoon I wasn’t able to get the maximum out of my first two Michelin qualifying tires, so we made some more changes to the chassis settings and that allowed me to make a big step forward with my third qualifier. I didn’t expect to get pole with my fourth qualifying tire but I did, so we’re very happy.”

As ever, the MotoGP pack is tightly packed with Hayden just six tenths off pole and the fastest 12 riders covered by just 1.076 seconds. Hard-working Hayden and his crew have focused on improving corner-entry performance at this tight and complex track. The American moved up to sixth fastest in qualifying with a time of 1:33.286 but his crew will make further changes overnight in an effort to improve his pace in race trim.

“It definitely hasn’t been an easy day or an easy weekend," Hayden said. "We haven’t really found a direction even though we’ve been trying a lot of things. This afternoon I think we made a bit of progress and got a better feeling as time went on, so I was able to put one down later on and get a respectable grid position. But I really need to come up with something for tomorrow if I don’t want to watch them guys completely disappear in the race.

"Getting into the corners has been the issue, then when we get the front better we hurt the rear, so it’s been a constant compromise all weekend. We’ve been making a little bit bigger changes than we would usually make during a race weekend but sometimes that has to be done."

Weather conditions at Le Mans have been very changeable, with Saturday morning’s third practice session getting underway on a damp track and the afternoon’s qualifying outing run in cool and mostly overcast conditions with the occasional sunny spell. There is still a possibility of rain Sunday.

Qualifying Results
1. D. PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team 1:32.647
2. C. EDWARDS USA Tech 3 Yamaha +0.127
3. C. STONER AUS Ducati Marlboro Team +0.347
4. V. ROSSI ITA Fiat Yamaha Team +0.510
5. J. LORENZO SPA Fiat Yamaha Team +0.622
6. N. HAYDEN USA Repsol Honda Team +0.639
7. J. TOSELAND GBR Tech 3 Yamaha +0.749
8. C. VERMEULEN AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP +0.793
9. J. HOPKINS USA Kawasaki Racing Team +0.981
10. A. DOVIZIOSO ITA JiR Team Scot MotoGP +1.042
11. L. CAPIROSSI ITA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP +1.060
12. R. DE PUNIET FRA LCR Honda MotoGP +1.076
13. S. NAKANO JPN San Carlo Honda Gresini +1.430
14. T. ELIAS SPA Alice Team +1.914
15. A. DE ANGELIS RSM San Carlo Honda Gresini +2.023
16. S. GUINTOLI FRA Alice Team +2.100
17. M. MELANDRI ITA Ducati Marlboro Team +2.434
18. A. WEST AUS Kawasaki Racing Team +2.702