MotoGP Indianapolis Saturday Insider

The big news today from Indianapolis Motor Speedway surrounded a little man and his Honda. Dani Pedrosa put on a clinic in qualifying, the small Spaniard getting his factory Repsol Honda RC212V around the speedway over half a second quicker than anyone else in the field and becoming the only ride to ever break the 1:40 barrier. He did so late in the session, laying down a 1:39.730. Second fastest was Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo at a 1:40.236, with teammate Rossi rounding out the front row a bit back at 1:40.609.

We were able to talk with Pedrosa very briefly, who contrary to popular belief has not signed a contract for next season yet. Could this be some extra motivation for the Spaniard? “I’m very pleased to be on pole here in America,” he said. “I was able to get into a good rhythm and everything is working quite well. I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow and hope it stays dry and we are able to fight for the victory.”

Judging by the qualifying and practice times it’s going to be tough for anyone to catch Pedrosa tomorrow as he’s now been quickest in both the wet and dry by a healthy margin. That’s not to say his arch rival Lorenzo isn’t going to try. It’s well known that the two young Spaniards aren’t very fond of each other. Though, in a strange show sportsmanship, Lorenzo extended a likable handshake to Pedrosa, something we haven’t seen between the two in years. How sincere it was, only Lorenzo knows. But one thing was for sure, Lorenzo was quite happy to be on the front row and in front of his teammate.

“I'm happy about this qualifying session because we made a big step with our setting from this morning and even from the start of the session,” Lorenzo said after in the post race press conference. “Unfortunately, we couldn't improve any more in the final laps and it's now six or seven races since I've been on pole which is strange for me, because doing one fast lap is usually one of my strong points. The important thing however is that we're on the front row, we have a good race pace and we are ready to challenge for the win tomorrow."

Despite qualifying on the front row, Rossi was very realistic about his chances for winning tomorrow. “We're on the front row and this is important, but honestly we don't have enough pace at the moment and I can't ride how I want to,” said the Italian. “We don't have quite enough grip to enable us to push to the maximum. We did a lot of work this afternoon but we're still not at our best and so now we all need to work to do because Pedrosa looks very strong and we need to close the gap to him. But we're confident that we can improve the package a bit more and set Jorge up for a great race tomorrow."

As for the American contingent, Texan Colin Edwards on his Monster Tech 3 Yamaha led the way in fifth spot, despite crashing late in the session. Edwards had set the quick time prior to the get-off and it held up for the remainder of qualifying. We were able to chat with him very briefly and he is looking forward to tomorrow, though he did say they have a few things to try in morning practice and if all goes well he’s aiming to be in podium contention for the race.

Fan favorite and virtual local boy Nicky Hayden (Indy is only a few hours from his home in Owensboro, Kentucky) squeezed his way onto the second row at the end of the 50-minute session. Hayden got hooked up with Pedrosa for a string of laps with about five minutes remaining and was able to jump up a couple spots to take the final position on the second row. We crossed paths with him for a moment at the Alpinestars tent. As usual, the kid with the million-dollar smile said he was looking forward to tomorrow and he’s “hoping to put on a good show for the hometown fans!” 

As for the Silly Season news, everything remains pretty much the same as yesterday, as nothing official has been announced. We did hear one juicy tidbit though. It’s no secret Rizla Suzuki’s Chris Vermeulen is out of a ride at the end of the this season as the Suzuki team has officially resigned veteran Loris Capirossi as well as 250cc GP youngster Alvaro Bautista. This has left Vermeulen in a tough spot as his results on the Suzuki have been anything but impressive lately (some of this undoubtedly due to the machine) and the number of bikes available for next year is far less than the number of current riders looking for spots. Because of this and his desire to stay in the GP paddock, we heard Vermeulen has approached the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha team and offered up his services for 2010 free of charge. While it’s believed he has some big-money-paying potential World Superbike offers, it appears the Australian wants to stay in GPs bad enough that he will do it for nothing – now that’s what we call desire. This is all we've heard today Silly Season wise, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated as we hear more.

The other big news of the day was the sheer amount of crashes. It seemed like every couple minutes someone was falling off. I’m not sure if the track was greasy or the rider’s were just trying really hard, but there were countless fallers in the three classes. James Toseland fell of his Tech 3 Yamaha in morning warm-up and then his teammate Edwards did in qualifying. Gresini Honda’s Toni Elias and Ducati’s Mika Kallio also joined Edwards on the ground in the qualifying session. And in the 125cc GP and 250cc GP classes there were three times this many in the dirt, as the youngsters are seemingly out for blood this weekend. This may well be due to a lack of rubber on the track as it’s on a course used for anything else throughout the year and it rained yesterday. Either way, it should present and interesting challenge for tomorrow.