It will be an all Honda front row in France this weekend, as the Honda RC212V found its way into the top four slots in the grid. Casey Stoner led the Honda charge and will be joined on the front row by Marco Simoncelli and Andrea Dovizioso. The fourth Honda, ridden by Dani Pedrosa, will lead the second row.
Stoner has never won the Frenh GP, but his performance today should give him some confidence heading into the fourth round of the 2011 MotoGP season.
“We’re very happy with this pole,” said Stoner. “We focused a lot on race set-up this afternoon, going from one bike to the other, making small adjustments to improve the bike a little. The conditions aren’t perfect at the moment. It’s quite windy, so it’s hard to see if you’ve improved or not, but my Honda was working really well and I never found myself pushing to the limit too much which is always good. This is our third pole of the season but we’ve only converted one of them into a victory so we hope to have a little more luck here in Le Mans and fight for the win.”
Simoncelli, who missed his first pole position today by .05 seconds, finished on the front row for the second consecutive race today.
“I got really close to my first-ever pole today... 0.059s is hardly anything,” Sioncelli said. “In any case II am happy and we are not in bad shape for the race.”
Andrea Dovizioso claimed his first front row start of the season today. Dovizioso has yet to find the podium this season, but is confident that he can fight at the top tomorrow.
“I’m very happy to start from the first row,” Dovizioso said. “Even though this was our target, I didn’t expect it. I was behind Simoncelli for two laps and this helped me because I followed his lines. Tomorrow the race will be tough, Casey is very fast and he may try to run away. I have a good pace and I think I will fight with Simoncelli. I want to thank my team for all their hard work and hope we can get a good result tomorrow.”
Dani Pedrosa was the fourth fastest rider, and fourth fastest Honda, for the day. Pedrosa missed the front row for the first time this season, but is still in a good position for tomorrow’s race.
