Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa will start the final grand prix of the
2007 MotoGP season from the pole position in a session that was
filled with surprises.
That the Spaniard on top wasn’t a surprise; it was his fourth pole
in a row and it came on a warm, sunlit afternoon in Valencia,
Spain. Neither was it surprising that Marlboro Ducati’s Casey
Stoner was second fastest by less than a tenth of a second. The
session ended with Stoner winning the BMW M Award for being
fast qualifier at all the MotoGP races and the official pre-season
MotoGP test in Jerez, Spain.
Stoner was leading the BMW M Award standings when the day
began and he secured the award when Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino
Rossi had a vicious high-side in the left hand turn one, his M1
bucking three times before throwing him over the top. The 28-
year-old Italian was holding his right wrist and clearly in pain at
the side of the track before being taken by ambulance to the
medical center. The initial diagnosis is a broken fifth metacarpal,
a broken pyramidal, and broken wrist.
If the injuries force him out of the race, it will be the first time
he’s failed to make the grid in 191 races. It would also put his
second place in the championship in jeopardy. Pedrosa is
currently 24 points behind and would pass Rossi if he won the
race and Rossi failed to score a point.
Valencia has not been kind to Rossi. Last year he had control of
the championship, only to suffer an uncharacteristic crash while
out of contention for the win. The title went to Repsol Honda’s
Nicky Hayden.
Hayden was having a miserable weekend until the very end of
qualifying. Unable to get heat into his tires, he languished near
the bottom of the order for much of the session, keeping
company with Kurtis Roberts and Chaz Davies. But he jumped up
the order to seventh place, then into second with 9:30 mins. to
run in the one hour session. With 2:28 to go he went to the top
with a lap of 1:31.903. But in a span of less than a minute he
dropped to third. Stoner went faster at the two-minute mark,
followed by Pedrosa’s hot lap with 1:35 remaining. Still, Hayden
was happy to be on the front row and hopeful something could be
found overnight to make the bike more raceworthy. full story on
cyclenews.com - pics from motograndprix.it