Today’s qualifying session for tomorrow’s Italian MotoGP race showed how strong Valentino Rossi is, beating the lap record of the track and also riding with a strong pace for the race. JiR Team Scot rider Andrea Dovizioso will be joined on the grid by Silvia Battisti, Miss Italy 2007. Tomorrow, Andrea will once more be forced to do an attacking race, one full of maximum determination as he starts from the fifth row of the grid. Mugello is a racetrack where a clean riding style is important and thankfully one, which are the main characteristics of Andrea’s. Unfortunately, there were some small problems today which included finding a good stability of the bike, which is important to get a good pace for the race and find the maximum effect of the qualifying tyres. The forecast for tomorrow’s weather is sunshine and clear skies. Warm-up tomorrow will be very important to clear up some small issues on th e bike.
Cirano Mularoni – Team Manager JiR Team Scot
“Today Andrea completed practice and ended with a position which did not fully show his potential. His best characteristic which is his clean riding style is so important on a technical race track like this, so let’s hope that helps us tomorrow. Together the team and Andrea worked very hard today to find a good compromise and to have good performance on the track as well as to find a good feeling with the track and the best balance of the bike possible. I’m sure tomorrow can be a good race on this track and as usual it will be a race where Andrea will always be attacking!”
Andrea Dovizioso – Rider JiR Team Scot MotoGP
HONDA RC212V
13th: 1’49”565
“What I know looking at the qualifying times is that Valentino has been incredible! He not only broke the lap record, but clearly has a pace for the race which I think nobody else can match. We are not perfectly set up for the race yet, and when I think of the two different configurations for both race and qualifying I can say that our pace for the race is going to be a little far from the leaders. For this we will need to find solutions in the technical meeting we will have later. We will work hard in the warm-up tomorrow, but I’m not so sure we can totally change our current situation. In qualifying, I’m still struggling to use at the maximum the front tyre, as I cannot maintain the same lines I do with a race tyre. I also have to change my braking and corner entry points and obviously I also have to alter my corner speed. What I’m looking for in general is better stability from the bike and I will have to do the maximum tomorrow in front of my fans as many of them are here and I want to put on a good show for each and every one of them.”
Gianni Berti – Technical Co-ordinator JiR Team Scot
“Mugello is a circuit which is very technical but on the other hand also very difficult. The general balance of the bike has to be perfect if you want to use the whole performance of the machine. The track is full of slow corners, high-speed corners, downhill and uphill and gradient changes. For this we need proper balance with our bike, but we don’t have it hence we are on the fifth row. Sadly the Friday practice wasn’t able to give us any extra information thanks to heavy rain so we have to work hard during tomorrow’s warm-up.”
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