Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

Global
Qualifying report

Lorenzo lands new lap record to claim pole position at Phillip Island

Yamaha Factory Racing star set a new outright lap record of 1’27.899 in qualifying today, smashing the existing record by 0.766 seconds to claim his third pole position of the year.

Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Yamaha MotoGP

Jorge Lorenzo continued to dominate proceedings at Phillip Island this weekend as the Yamaha Factory Racing star set a new outright lap record of 1’27.899 in qualifying today, smashing the existing record by 0.766 seconds to claim his third pole position of the year.

Lorenzo set his record time on his penultimate lap in Qualifying Practice 2, beating Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez to the top position on the grid for tomorrow’s race by 0.221 seconds. Joining his teammate on the front row is Yamaha Factory Racing’s Valentino Rossi was third quickest with a personal best time of 1'28.647. All riders on the front row lapped under the existing Circuit Best Lap record of 1’28.665 set by Casey Stoner in 2008. The best CRT rider in qualifying was NGM Mobile Forward Racing’s Colin Edwards, the American rider will start in eleventh place on the grid after setting a time of 1'30.264 in QP2.

Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Yamaha MotoGP

Conditions were again warm and fine at Phillip Island, though slightly warmer than yesterday with a peak track temperature of 42°C recorded during QP1. For the qualifying sessions all riders selected softer rear slick options, while front tyre choice was more varied, with some riders preferring the superior edge grip of the softer, extra-soft compound front slick, over the slight advantage in cornering stability offered by the harder, soft compound front slick. The majority of riders assessed the hard compound rear slicks – which have been made mandatory for Sunday’s race - in the morning FP3 session and feedback indicates that these have slightly less edge grip, but better consistency than the softer rear slick options. With the new, grippier Phillip Island track surface causing an increase in tyre temperature, the works riders also assessed an extra-hard rear slick tyre Bridgestone brought as a contingency in Free Practice 4 to see if it was better suited to the revised track surface. The findings from this session reveal that the original, hard compound rear tyre that was allocated to the works riders performed better, and it will be this option offered to riders tomorrow.

The next MotoGP™ session is morning Warm Up scheduled for 1140 local time (GMT +11) tomorrow and the Australian Grand Prix will start at 1600.

Shinji Aoki – Manager, Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development Department
“With the new, improved track surface at Phillip Island it was expected that we could see a new Circuit Best Lap record today, but to see it beaten by such a margin was a very pleasing result. We could see after FP3 that tyre temperatures were extremely high, so we offered an extra-hard specification rear slick tyre for the works riders to evaluate in FP4. However, this compound option didn’t work as well on the track surface, hence we will be offering our original hard specification rear slick to riders for the race. Both our extra-soft and soft compound front slicks were used today and the feedback from riders was that both options worked well and I expect both of the front slick choices to be utilised in tomorrow’s race. We anticipated tyre temperatures would be higher this year at Phillip Island, but not to the extreme levels we have seen this weekend. After analysing the used tyres after today`s sessions, we have decided that the maximum safe distance that our rear slick tyres can be run is fourteen laps. Following discussions between Bridgestone, Dorna and the FIM on how to best manage rider safety for the race, it was race direction`s decision to make tomorrow`s race a flag-to-flag contest.”

Bridgestone MotoGP

Be part of Motorsport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Record first compulsory bike change introduced to MotoGP
Next article Lorenzo Flies to Record Breaking Phillip Island Pole

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

Global