Casey Stoner left nothing to chance this afternoon and scored his fourth pole of the season and thirtieth of his career (26 in MotoGP class) at the Silverstone circuit, which will tomorrow host the sixth round of the 2011 MotoGP World Championship. Team mate Andrea Dovizioso will start on the second row of the grid, in fifth position.
The Australian Repsol Honda rider completed a stunningly fast lap seven minutes before the end of the qualifying session. His 2’02.020 lap was 1.2 seconds quicker than the 2010 pole position set by Jorge Lorenzo. However, Stoner’s pace is not only impressive on the flying lap but also for race pace: in the one hour qualifying practice, he completed 5 laps under the 2010 pole position and 8 laps under the circuit record (2’03.526).
Andrea Dovizioso has tried to make the most of today’s two sessions in dry conditions to take another step forward. The Italian, who scored a second place finish here in 2010, has improved his time from yesterday by more than 1.5 seconds and he will fight for the podium from the second row on the grid.
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MotoGP: British Grand Prix - Final Practice Results
CASEY STONER – 1st 2’02.020
“Everything has gone really well this weekend, we were lucky it stayed dry for qualifying but it doesn’t look so good for tomorrow. We’ve been competitive in each session and in various weather so I hope we have prepared ourselves for the race tomorrow, whatever the conditions. We haven’t changed too much from the set up we had in Barcelona and this afternoon was important for us to see what we could get from the hard tyre, what our pace is and if we can find some more edge grip, and we definitely found some more traction so I’m very happy with how everything is working at the moment. For the pole position we changed the set up and balance of the bike a little and on my best lap I closed the front a few times and wasn’t so confident with the balance, so I feel lucky to have got the pole but for sure it’s the best way to start the Grand Prix. We’ll see what the weather does tomorrow but I love this track and love this part of the UK and I’m really happy to be here!”
ANDREA DOVIZIOSO – 5th 2’03.212
“Compared to this morning’s practice we improved the bike and I had quite a good feeling with my machine. We worked on the set up to have more control especially over the bumps and the different track surfaces. After 10 laps we managed a 2’03.8 with the hard tyres, which is not too bad. In the afternoon we were faster, but the others also improved a lot. We need to analyse the data and understand in which areas we can work to gain some tenths. Tomorrow we will begin from the second row and it will be very important to have a good start and maintain contact with the riders at the front.”
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