Lorenzo flies to Indianapolis front row

Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo gave it everything this afternoon in an incident packed qualifying session to take second on the grid for tomorrow’s Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Having struggled to find pace all weekend the team made a big step for qualifying, dramatically improving his speed and resulting in a qualifying time just 0.1 seconds from pole.

Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Yamaha MotoGP

Team mate Ben Spies continued to show the impressive pace he’s displayed all weekend for qualifying. The Texan looked on target for a record breaking pole lap nearly half a second clear until a big high side between T13 and T14.

The difficult track conditions at that corner also claimed Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden with serious crashes. Spies was able to rejoin for the last eight minutes of qualifying but was unable to improve on his time so will start from fourth on the grid tomorrow with a time 0.4 seconds from pole.

Jorge Lorenzo
Position 2nd - Time 1.38.913 - Laps 29

“A really tough weekend so far, I really thought I wouldn’t be able to deliver but finally we modified the bike a lot with some weight on the rear to enter the corners with more confidence. I felt great as a result, could lean a lot and open the throttle quickly so I got second and was close to Dani. We don’t have a bad pace but not as good as Dani yet, we need to improve a little in the morning.”

Ben Spies
Position: 4th Time: 1.39.279 Laps: 26

“My shoulder is really sore after that crash, maybe some torn ligaments so it’s pretty painful. I’m getting some treatment and we’ll see how it is tomorrow. It’s frustrating as we’ve been going really well all weekend and I’ve been feeling really confident with the bike, I think we could have been on pole. The track surface is pretty tricky at the end there, it seems to have caught a few people today.”

Wilco Zeelenberg - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager “A very positive qualifying, Jorge found a way to ride the infield better to go with the bike improvements, over a second quicker than this morning. We’re happy with the result and the consistency which is important for tomorrow’s race so let’s see what happens.”

Massimo Meregalli - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director

“Everything was perfect for qualifying apart from the last 500 metres of Ben’s great lap. His rhythm is very good which is important. Unfortunately due to the crash Ben is very sore now and we hope he will be ok to ride tomorrow. Jorge did a great job, they solved the problems and he found his speed so it will be an interesting race tomorrow. It’s going to be quite hot so I think the physical condition will make the difference.”

Source: Yamaha Racing