Buzzin MotoGP

photograph: Eric Vester 

Valentino Rossi claimed his first pole position of the season today at Mugello ahead of the Italy Moto GP tomorrow and will be striving for his seventh consecutive home win.

Rossi is wearing a special crash helmet for his home race featuring seven of the seven-times world champions face which is shown in it’s full glory when he puts his head down.

With only eight minutes of the session to run, the Fiat Yamaha rider set a time of 1:48.130, replacing Colin Edwards name from the top of the time-sheets.

Dani Pedrosa is in second place on the Repsol Honda after beating Loris Capirossi for Rizla Suzuki from second to third place on the grid. It is Capirossi’s best qualifying session so far this year since joining the Suzuki team.

Casey Stoner is in fourth place a quarter of a second slower than Rossi followed by Colin Edwards on the Yamaha and Nicky Hayden on the Honda.

Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo qualified in seventh followed by James Toseland and Shinya Nakano on the Honda. Alex de Angeles finishes off the top ten qualifying places.

Here are the results;

Pos  Rider             Bike           Time
 1.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    (B)  1:48.130
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda     (M)  1:48.297  + 0.167
 3.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki    (B)  1:48.313  + 0.183
 4.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    (B)  1:48.375  + 0.245
 5.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    (M)  1:48.383  + 0.253
 6.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     (M)  1:48.666  + 0.536
 7.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha    (M)  1:48.905  + 0.775
 8.  James Toseland    Yamaha    (M)  1:49.025  + 0.895
 9.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     (B)  1:49.095  + 0.965
10.  Alex de Angelis   Honda     (B)  1:49.145  + 1.015
11.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    (B)  1:49.220  + 1.090
12.  Randy de Puniet   Honda     (M)  1:49.246  + 1.116
13.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda     (M)  1:49.435  + 1.435
14.  John Hopkins      Kawasaki  (B)  1:49.601  + 1.471
15.  Tadayuki Okada    Honda     (M)  1:49.829  + 1.699
16.  Toni Elias        Ducati    (B)  1:49.851  + 1.721
17.  Sylvain Guintoli  Ducati    (B)  1:50.275  + 2.145
18.  Marco Melandri    Ducati    (B)  1:50.465  + 2.335
19.  Anthony West      Kawasaki  (B)  1:50.889  + 2.759

250cc

Hector Barbera set a fantastic lap time of 1:52.675 today to qualify on pole position beating Alavaro Bautista by 0.772 seconds at the end of the session.

Following the two Aprilia riders for third spot was Marco Simoncelli on the Gilera, almost a second behind Barbera.

In fourth place was the KTM rider Mika Kallio who had led for most of today’s session followed by Lukas Pesek and Manuel Poggiali who crashed out with only thirteen minutes to go but managed to rejoin.

Three Aprilia’s took the seventh, eighth and ninth places, Alex Debon, Thomas Luthi and Mattia Pasini. Pasini crashed out with only a minute of the session left to run after losing the front end of his machine.

Here are the qualifying times;

125cc

KTM rider, Raffaele de Rosa took his first pole position today at his home track with a time of 1:58.302, followed by Gabor Talmacsi on the Aprilia and Derbi rider Mike di Meglio, both within two-tenths of a second of de Rosa’s time.

The final spot on the front row went to Derbi rider Pol Espargaro with Sergio Gadea in fifth place and Simone Cortese in sixth.

In seventh spot was the British rider Bradley Smith, after crashing out in the final seconds of the session. He had set the fastest sector times at the very end when he lost the rear, high-sided over his bike and landed on his back before sliding into the gravel pit.

Here are the qualifying times;