Sete Gibernau kept his date with the front row of the grid (9 out of 11 so far) at the Portuguese Grand Prix, which was swamped by even more Spanish fans than ever today. However, the Telefónica MoviStar rider was unable to improve his best time from yesterday and tomorrow’s 20-minute warm up session will be important to the preparations for the race. The final qualifying practice was a complicated affair, with several changes to the setting of the bike not giving the expected results. The session was openly contested, with the first four riders within a tenth of a second. American rider Colin Edwards knocked three tenths of a second off his time from yesterday and lines up on the third row of the grid.
SETE GIBERNAU
(3rd, 1’38”067): “We haven’t completed the job as we would have liked today – it was a tough session, a lot of things were done but we haven’t made the necessary steps forward to find a good rhythm. Now we have to sit down with the team and find out why because I actually felt better yesterday than I did today. We will have to work hard tonight and decide what solution to go for tomorrow, and Michelin will have to help us as well with the tyres. It will be a hard race and I just need to improve on the rhythm I had yesterday.”
COLIN EDWARDS
(7th, 1’38”738): “We have changed a few small things on the bike, working from the base we found yesterday. I feel better on the bike but we’ve still got chattering, especially on race tyres. We still haven’t chosen the tyre for the race but I think we’ll go soft. Even though there’s less grip, at least the chattering isn’t so bad. I think the race rhythm will be around 39”5 but it will be tough to stick with the pace from half distance.”
FAUSTO GRESINI
(Team manager): “We had a bit of everything today – rain in the morning and sun in the afternoon. Sete’s crash in the free practice was nothing really, but even though we tried to improve the setting of the bike, the times didn’t come. Hopefully tomorrow we can find that little bit we are missing to go into the race with the best possible chance. Colin improved his time and will start from eighth but we are looking for more improvements from him in the morning.”
LAP TIMES
1. Makoto Tamada (Jap/Honda) 1’37”933
2. Valentino Rossi (Ita/Yamaha) + 0”103
3. Sete Gibernau (Spa/Honda) + 0”134
4. Max Biaggi (Ita/Honda) + 0”136
5. Alex Barros (Bra/Honda) + 0”2882
…..
- Colin Edwards (USA/Honda) + 0”505