MotoGP news

Rossi: Things look positive

Valentino Rossi sealed a second consecutive front-row start in Estoril today, finishing this afternoon's sunny qualifying session in third ahead of tomorrow's Portuguese Grand Prix.

After a good first day's work yesterday, Rossi was fast again in this morning's final free practice session and finished second behind Casey Stoner, but Edwards continued to struggle and was down in 13th. Rossi put in more good work throughout the first half hour of this afternoon's session and was never out of the top three, showing a good race pace which was well in touch with his rivals. Edwards meanwhile was making little progress before a small change to his set-up in the second half gave him the tools he needed to improve his pace.

As the session moved into its crunch period, both riders tried a new qualifying tyre from Michelin but it did not work as planned and they were left with a sole soft tyre each with which to make their qualifying bids. Rossi's lap put him on pole briefly but both Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden then went faster than him, with Hayden's eventual pole lap a tenth of a second off Rossi's 2006 time.

Speaking about the qualifying session in Portugal Rossi said: "We've been fast for all the practice sessions so far here and we have found a good rhythm so things are looking quite positive. It's good to be on the front row, of course pole is always the target but the most important thing is to be on the front row in order to give ourselves the best chance. I tried a new kind of qualifying tyre today but it didn't work so I only had one lap, but luckily I was able to do a good time, even if I might have improved with one more tyre. The new Michelin race tyres are working well here and the other Michelin riders are fast too so we can hopefully all be close to Stoner tomorrow. I hope that we can fight with him, make some good passes and have some fun, especially in the first part of the race."

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