Jerez qualifying results

It was an interesting finish to a wind-swept qualifying practice in Jerez. Nothing too drastic in the crash-and-burn department - no devastating agricultural excursions to speak of. I guess we can start with the absence of Valentino Rossi on the front row for tomorrow's race. He will be starting on the second row of the grid with Randy DePuniet (YAY Randy!) and MotoGP veteran Loris Capirossi bringing it home for Rizla Suzuki.

Tomorrow's battle will begin as a duel between the Spaniards Jorge Lorenzo (pole) and Dani Pedrosa - not the "best of friends" as it were. Casey Stoner and his Ducati complete the front row line up as teammate Nicky Hayden sits back in 16th position. The next fastest qualifyer for Ducati was Sete Gibernau who will start 12th - the rest of them 16th (Nick), 17th (Kallio), and 18th (Canepa) - che cosa succede Ducati???

Casey's bike did appear to be all over the place this morning, rowing violently out of the corners. He's certainly not opposed to riding a spastic machine, exciting, yes, but it does not usually bode well for winning races.

Randy DePuniet gave a smashing performance hitting the board in 5th - as Randy many times does - during QUALIFYING. When do we get to see him repeat the performance on race day? With Le Mans coming up in a couple of weeks, it would be nice to see him buff up his race-day performance for a shot at the podium at home.

Once again, we are in for an interesting race tomorrow. Hopefully by then the winds will have died down so we can see a race unchallenged by weather conditions - hell, the 125's were drilling holes in their fairings to keep from being blown off track.

Here are the full results of qualifying -

1	J. Lorenzo	Yamaha
2	D. Pedrosa	Honda
3	C. Stoner	Ducati
4	V. Rossi	Yamaha
5	R. DePuniet	Honda
6	L. Capirossi	Suzuki
7	C. Edwards	Yamaha
8	A. Dovizioso	Honda
9	T. Elias	Honda
10	C. Vermeulen	Suzuki
11	M. Melandri	Kawasaki
12	S. Gibernau	Ducati
13	Y. Takahashi	Honda
14	J. Toseland	Yamaha
15	A. de Angelis	Honda
16	N. Hayden	Ducati
17	M. Kallio	Ducati
18	N. Canepa	Ducati

Until next time....

Rubb'er Down

Kristen