ALL ITALIAN START FOR JAPAN
23 September 2006 - Moto GP

A-Style Grand Prix of Japan - Saturday 23rd September

With the MotoGP and 250cc title races still wide open, and every advantage possibly decisive, today’s qualifying sessions for the antepenultimate Grand Prix of the season was always going to be a highly charged affair. Spectators were not only treated to this, but also clear skies and the prospect of seeing 125cc World Champion Alvaro Bautista once again demonstrate his dominance of the 125cc category.

Loris Capirossi took pole for the A-Style Grand Prix of Japan with a storming lap of 1’45.724, as he looks to repeat his 2005 win at Twin Ring Motegi tomorrow. The Italian followed on from his timesheet-topping performance in the morning free practice session to become one of only two riders to break the 1’46 barrier, with championship contender Valentino Rossi putting on a late charge to take the second spot on the grid.

Rossi had previously emphasised that a good qualifying position in the remaining races would be essential for his title chances, and with series leader Nicky Hayden only able to put himself at the head of row three the charismatic Italian is in the driving seat at Motegi.

Marco Melandri, victorious in Australia a week ago and still including himself in the list of title hopefuls, completes an all-Italian affair on row one, followed by home rider Shinya Nakano and the Spanish duo of Sete Gibernau and Toni Elias. Hayden’s fastest lap was just over half a second slower than Capirossi’s, leaving him ahead of Kawasaki’s Randy de Puniet, team-mate Dani Pedrosa and Camel Yamaha’s Colin Edwards.

Jorge Lorenzo took his tenth pole of 2006 after one of the most frantic five minute spells in this season’s 250cc championship. In the closing moments of the session the gathered fans at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit saw a crash from home rider Yuki Takahashi and Repsol Honda’s Shuhei Aoyama leading on course for a popular pole position, although he finally slipped down to fifth after Lorenzo had retaken the advantage with a 1’51.374 lap. Humangest Racing’s Andrea Dovizioso, needing to close the gap between himself and Lorenzo in the championship standings, clinched second place on the grid on his final lap of the Japanese track. The two were the only riders to go round in under 1’52.

Alex de Angelis was another rider to leave it late before making his move, and will complete tomorrow’s front row. The older of the two Aoyama brothers, Hiroshi, heads row two ahead of his younger sibling Shuhei. Takahashi’s sixth place makes it an all-Japanese second line, with the top ten completed by Roberto Locatelli, Hector Barbera, Sylvain Guintoli and Jakub Smrz.

Alvaro Bautista took pole position number six of the season with the fastest time in the 125cc category at Motegi. The new World Champion’s time of 1’57.231 confirmed his provisional pole from yesterday and put him ahead of Mika Kallio, fastest this morning. Hector Faubel and Julian Simon will line up alongside the two on the front row.

The second row will be led by Sergio Gadea, unable to improve on yesterday’s times, whilst Lukas Pesek, Mattia Pasini and Thomas Luthi were only slightly faster than British rookie Bradley Smith, who took a phenomenal ninth place on his debut appearance at Twin Ring Motegi. Local rider Tomoyoshi Koyama wrapped up the top ten.
Pole position - Loris Capirossi - Ducati

''Tomorrow’s going to be different, but we have done a good job in practice with a number of fast laps, which we continued with when we switched to qualifiers. Let’s just cross our fingers and hope that it doesn’t rain tomorrow.''

2nd position - Valentino Rossi - Yamaha

''For sure I am very happy to be on the front row again for the fourth race in a row. My M1 has worked well from the start here so we’ve been able to work on the setting with various different things and then mix everything together to find the very best race set-up. Now it seems we’re in good shape. The bike worked very well also with the qualifying tyre and I had very good grip. Unfortunately I lost one qualifying tyre when Hopkins crashed in front of me, but luckily my team did a great job with the pit-stop – it was even faster than a Formula 1 team! Fortunately I made a good lap with the final tyre and now we’re starting from second. I am happy; tomorrow will be a difficult race but I am quite confident.''

3rd position - Marco Melandri - Honda

''It’s been good for me and we’re having a good weekend. I’m feeling better with the qualifying tyres than in the last few races, and a top five position on the grid was my goal for today. Tomorrow will be a hard race because of the amount of riders who arrive here in form.''

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