BARBERA AND SIMONCELLI READY FOR SEPANG SHOWDOWN
09 October 2004 - Aprilia

APRILIA’S Hector Barbera claimed his best grid position since the British GP in July when he grabbed second place in today’s final 125 qualifying session at a scorching hot Sepang circuit.

The Spanish teenager set a best time of 2.13.576s to knock 0.4s off his provisional best time and assure himself of a seventh front row start in 2004.

The Seedorf Aprilia rider, who goes into tomorrow’s race 61-points adrift of series leader Andrea Dovizioso, said: “It will be a tough race because of the heat but I’m happy to be on the front row. The bike is working well and we should have a set-up that will allow us to be consistent during the race.

Marco Simoncelli left it late to claim only his third front row start of the season at the challenging and technical 5.548km circuit. His previous two front row starts have been from pole position in Jerez and Brno, and this afternoon he logged a best of 2.13.843s, giving him confidence that he will be in contention to record his second podium finish of the campaign tomorrow.

Roberto Locatelli will be looking to wrestle back third position in the championship standings when he starts from the second row in seventh place. The experienced Italian managed to clock a best time of 2.14.479s. Going into tomorrow’s race, Locatelli trails third placed Jorge Lorenzo by just three-points. He said: “That was better than yesterday but we are still not at 100 per cent. We will have to make more changes in the warm-up to be more competitive for the race.”

Today’s 30-minute session was run in typically hot and humid Malaysian conditions, though heavy cloud meant temperatures didn’t soar as high as yesterday when the sixth Malaysian GP to be staged at Sepang got underway. Air temperatures for this afternoon’s hit 31 degrees, some three degrees cooler than yesterday, though still punishing for the riders nevertheless.

www.aprilia.com

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