Sete Gibernau and Marco Melandri will start the inaugural Grand Prix of China from the front of the MotoGP grid tomorrow morning, with the action getting underway at 9am CET.
Sete and Marco were seperated by just a tenth of a second as they took pole position and second place respectively, dominating the closing stages of the session and becoming the only men to lap inside 1’59” at a track which the riders saw for the first time this weekend.
Sete Gibernau stopped the clock at 1’59”710, knocking almost three seconds off his time in yesterday morning’s dry first free practice session. His impressive improvement was enough for pole position, his first of the season, and he will now look to win the first ever race to be held at Shanghai, as he did at Qatar last season.
Marco Melandri’s performances are improving with each Grand Prix that goes by, the Italian returning to the front row of the grid today and confident of challenging for the podium as he did in the opening round of the season at Jerez.
SETE GIBERNAU (1st, 1’59”710): “It’s good to see that we’re competitive at yet another track and particularly here, where we arrived without any previous data to work from. I think it’s a difficult circuit but once again we’ve been at the maximum level. In the end we managed to improve the set-up of the bike quite a lot and, without doubt, that is thanks to the hard work being put in by my team, together with Honda and Michelin. We’re doing a great job, which hasn’t been reflected in the race results yet, but I know that everything will be back to normal soon and we will be rewarded for our efforts.”
MARCO MELANDRI (2nd, 1’59”873): “I’ve enjoyed myself at this circuit ever since we rode it for the first time on Friday morning. It’s a really different type of track but we had a good setting straight away and we’ve just worked to improve on that, eventually setting the second fastest time today, which is fantastic. I’m back on the front row and I’m going out to win tomorrow, even though I know it will be difficult because a lot will depend on the weather. It was a good battle with my team-mate Sete at the end of the session.”
GRID POSITIONS AND LAP TIMES
- Sete Gibernau (Esp/Honda) 1’59”710
- Marco Melandri (Ita/Honda) 1’59”873
- Loris Capirossi (Ita/Ducati) 2’00”480
- John Hopkins (USA/Suzuki) 2’00”666
- Nicky Hayden (USA/Honda) 2’00”747
- Valentino Rossi (Ita/Yamaha) 2’00”821