The Jerez spoiler thread

 First Practice. Rossi does a Stoner. 1/2 second quicker than anyone. But
not like Stoner because he wacked in a whole series of laps that were
all really close to that time.

Nice to see a familiar, dry, warm, sunny European race track for a
change with a big crowd even for Friday lunchtime.

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"Julian Bond" wrote

Qualifying:

 1. Jorge LORENZO (Yamaha), 1:38.933
2. Dani PEDROSA (Honda), 1:38.984
3. Casey STONER (Ducati), 1:39.415
4. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha), 1:39.642
5. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda), 1:39.806
6. Loris CAPIROSSI (Suzuki), 1:39.862
7. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha), 1:39.926
8. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda), 1:39.966
9. Toni ELIAS (Honda), 1:40.112
10. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki), 1:40.185
11. Marco MELANDRI (Kawasaki), 1:40.381
12. Sete GIBERNAU (Ducati), 1:40.440
13. Yuki TAKAHASHI (Honda), 1:40.599
14. James TOSELAND (Yamaha), 1:40.670
15. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda), 1:40.796
16. Nicky HAYDEN (Ducati), 1:40.953
17. Mika KALLIO (Ducati), 1:41.238
18. Niccolo CANEPA (Ducati), 1:41.253

Once again there's the appearance of Yamaha superiority, the "Ducati
problem", and the midget effect - front row weighing in at ~120 pounds
apiece. Lorenzo and Pedrosa led the 2nd session as well, and their pace in
the Q was to low 40s, something Stoner and Rossi struggled to match.
Capirossi and de Puniet got down to mid-high 40s some, and Edwards was
really 41s, but Dovizioso was a bit quicker than that and may be able to
hang with the faster guys. No one else looks to factor at all. Don't know
what the difference was in conditions between FP2 and QP, but Lorenzo and
Pedrosa were down in the mid-39s in the morning, and Stoner as well. Rossi
was mid-40s and behind a number of other guys on faster pace, so he looks to
be in a bit of trouble. For Hayden to get down to the high 40s some and
finish 10th in the session and "only" a second slower than Stoner must be a
bit encouraging, the way things have been going. On the other hand, the
Pramac boys were last in both sessions, which again seems to point up the
problem with the Ducati.

So it looks a little like the Motegi race and probably the same top five in
the end, but the order may be juggled a bit. While Rossi could do the usual
and find the difference by race time, I'll guess this will be a Spanish
fight, with Stoner the wildcard threatening to spoil it for the homies,
trailed by Rossi and Dovi. And while it looks to be close, with the 800s
there's no way to guess if we'll have a fight or just another professional
affair...

 
I think we might be seeing the effect of limited tyre availability.
- FP1. Everyone tries softs and hards
- FP2. Some, but not all teams decide they need hard for the race. Those
teams concentrate on race pace and save the softs for qualifying. And
they run one set of hard tyres for the whole session to avoid using them
up
- QP1. The teams using hards are using old tyres to save some for warm
up and the race. The teams using softs are running out because they need
one set for the qualifying run and warmup and one for the race. In the
last 15 minutes, people with enough softs left can get 2 or 3 runs at a
good time.

Or something like that.

The other factor in QP1 was apparently high winds. Several people had a
good lap with one bad sector. That could easily be a wind induced
bobble. Which would then mean that the top 6 or more actually had
potential to be closer together but they didn't manage to get a single
clear lap at just the right moment.

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On a track that is still a b*tch to get to and back from. A friend
texted telling me he spend 2 hours getting out of there after the Q
session... :-) Things will be the usual utter mess tomorrow, and
people complain here in Laguna Seca... Still, wish I was there.

It will be interesting to see whether Lorenzo can keep some momentum
going or, like last year, he'll fade as the season progresses and
expectations build and mistakes mount... the pressure of the home
crowd will be a good indication, and the fact that the Dan-bot will
try to be in the mix. is it me or does it seem that Danbot enjoys
racing even less this year? I mean come on dude, can you every once in
a  while show some passion for the sport? I somehow feel Pedrosa would
pull a Criville if he ever won a title, but I don't think he'll even
get that far. He just doesn't seem to have the spark for racing
anymore. I would not be surprised if by end season Dovizioso displaces
him as top Repsol rider. In fact, it would not be a shocking thing if
Lorenzo and Pedrosa both end up on the floor tomorrow.

I also hope Elias mixes it up tomorrow.

Other than that, damn, Hayden must be feeling the pressure. His season
thus far is even worse than Melandri's utter trainwreck season on the
Duc. Please turn it around some.

 
When I was there for the pre-season test a couple of years ago and
camping at the circuit, we had no trouble getting a taxi in and out of
town even at the end of the Sunday test. Sunday morning, the traffic was
backed up out of the circuit and back down the road into town. But
that's with 25k people not 125k. It's really too far to walk from the
town to the circuit. So I reckon the only option is an old dirt bike so
you can ride on the pavements and verges or across the fields. If you
flew in have a hire car then stay up all night and do it at 4am.

One of the best bits for me of Jerez is to be in a town where the first
roundabout on the edge has a giant stone statue of a racing motorcycle.
I can't imagine anywhere else in the world that would have that. So I
think it's about time that the IoM commissioned a giant sculpture to sit
either on the Douglas main drag or up on top of the hill. "The Angel of
the Island"?

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Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
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