ROSSI ON FRONT ROW FOR PENULTIMATE EUROPEAN ROUND
05 September 2004 - Yamaha Racing

Valentino Rossi (1’38.036) will start from second position on the grid for tomorrow’s Portuguese Grand Prix, after being edged off pole position in the last minute of final qualifying in Estoril.

Rossi’s Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha team-mate Carlos Checa (1’38.862) improved his grid position slightly and will start from 10th position tomorrow, while the Fortuna Gauloises Tech3 team riders made the best of the strange final qualifying session. Marco Melandri (1’38.367), who circulated around the Estoril circuit in a new one-off Spiderman livery, qualified in seventh place - the livery linked to promoting the new Spiderman 2 movie. Meanwhile Norick Abe (1’39.635) put his YZR M-1 on the fifth row in 14th position.

Checa was one of the first riders to better yesterday’s time, moving from 11th to ninth position with nine minutes left on the clock. As the session drew to a close Rossi still held onto pole position, but then Honda rider Makota Tamada stormed into the top slot with a lap of 1’37.933. Rossi made a small mistake on his flying lap shortly after and could not beat the Japanese rider’s time, leaving him in second place with yesterday’s lap still his fastest. Sete Gibernau (Honda) completes the front row in third position after also failing to improve on yesterday’s time – a 1’38.067.

Valentino Rossi (Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha) second – 1’38.036
“The track is a little bit worse than yesterday because last night and this morning it was raining. The surface was dry this afternoon but it wasn’t the same as yesterday. I made a mistake with my qualifying tyre and I couldn’t improve the time from yesterday. However I’m in second position for the start and I’m fairly happy. We had a few problems with the tyres; the rear moves too much after a few laps, so I hope we can improve this for the race.”

Carlos Checa (Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha) tenth – 1’38.862
“I was not able to use my qualifying tyre as I had expected, so my best lap was done with one of the two possible race tyres I have for tomorrow. I’m still not 100 percent comfortable and we need to try to use the warm-up session tomorrow to try to get a better feeling. My pace is good, but the only handicap is that I will start from the fourth row. This could make turn one a little bit difficult.”

Davide Brivio, Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha team director
“A strange day; one session wet, one dry. For sure on positive thing is that we improved our rain settings a lot and had a good session this morning. Yamaha and the team worked very well on this. In the afternoon, despite Valentino not being able to use qualifying tyres in the best way, he stayed on the front row and this is very important for tomorrow. Carlos unfortunately couldn’t move up much from yesterday so will have a difficult race, but I’m sure he’ll try his best to be on top.”

Marco Melandri (Fortuna Gauloises Tech3) seventh – 1’38.367 “I’m not really happy. The settings we had yesterday didn’t work at all today. Even at the start of the session everything felt different, and even though I improved my lap time I lost out on a start from the second row of the grid. The racing line was maybe a bit cleaner yesterday, but not by much, and in T4 the bike was hard to control. Yesterday my rhythm was okay, but today it was difficult. And when the bike is like that the tyres don’t work so well either.”

Norick Abe (Fortuna Gauloises Tech3) 14th – 1’39.635
“My final lap time wasn’t that good, but my pace on race tyres was fine. I could even follow Rossi for two or three laps – and I haven’t been able to do that yet this year. On a qualifying tyre my laps times didn’t really change that much. So if I get a good start I should be able to run a good race. We made some small changes today and we’ll look at some more small changes to the front-end in the warm-up. If they work better – fine – if not we’ll go with what we had today.”

Hervé Poncharal, Fortuna Gauloises Tech3 team director
“Today we had a new Spiderman livery for Marco – but sadly it didn’t bring us that much luck this morning. Marco crashed out on his fourth lap, but he was okay. But this afternoon he was the fastest of the Yamaha riders, so that’s a positive. He’s struggling in the T4 section of the track and losing ground, especially on the last long right-hand turn, which leads onto the straight. We’re a bit worried about his race pace so the warm-up tomorrow is vital to give Marco a better feel on the bike. If he feels good and gets a good start in the race he could be in the top five, I think. Norick is going well and he’s happy with things.”

Round: 11 - Estoril Grand Prix
Circuit: Estoril
Circuit Length: 4182
Lap Record: 1'' 39.189 (Valentino Rossi, 2003)
Fastest Lap Ever: 1'' 38.412 (Loris Capirossi, 2003)
Date: 4 September 2004
Temp: 24ºC

Session 2 :
Pos. Rider Manufacturer Nat. 1st Qualifying 2nd Qualifying
1 M. Tamada Honda JPN 1'' 38.342 1'' 37.933
2 V. Rossi Yamaha ITA 1'' 38.036 1'' 38.479
3 S. Gibernau Honda ESP 1'' 38.067 1'' 38.588
4 M. Biaggi Honda ITA 1'' 38.609 1'' 38.069
5 A. Barros Honda BRA 1'' 38.125 1'' 38.824
6 J. Hopkins Suzuki USA 1'' 38.822 1'' 38.323
7 M. Melandri Yamaha ITA 1'' 38.710 1'' 38.367
8 C. Edwards Honda USA 1'' 38.738 1'' 38.438
9 K. Roberts Suzuki USA 1'' 39.078 1'' 38.740
10 C. Checa Yamaha ESP 1'' 39.163 1'' 38.862
11 L. Capirossi Ducati ITA 1'' 39.071 1'' 39.392
12 S. Nakano Kawasaki JPN 1'' 39.751 1'' 39.157
13 T. Bayliss Ducati AUS 1'' 39.279 1'' 39.836
14 N. Abe Yamaha JPN 1'' 40.049 1'' 39.635
15 N. Hodgson Ducati GBR 1'' 39.677 N/A

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