Casey Stoner: "Qualifying never used to be a strong point of ours but now we seem to be turning it into one and that is a credit to the team, but also to Bridgestone, who have worked relentlessly on this aspect. We have to be thankful to them for that and to have enjoyed four consecutive pole positions together is fantastic for everybody. It has been a good weekend so far but not perfect because of the crash yesterday, which dented my confidence a little bit. The feeling with the front through that corner was good today though, which means I could get on the attack again today. I was struggling a little bit with the rear spinning up in T4 and I didn't expect my final lap to be enough for pole but we made up enough time in T3 to pull it off and I'm delighted. We have a decision to make on the race tyre depending on the weather because track temperature today was about 15 degrees less than yesterday so the hard compounds we were using just struggled a little bit today. We couldn't do quite the same lap times although I wasn't pushing as hard either, so it would make the decision easier if the sun comes back out tomorrow! We're trying our best to chase down this championship and we'll see if it will be possible."
Valentino Rossi: “Today things didn’t go how we hoped with the qualifying tyres! We had four as usual and, with the best one, unfortunately I found Jorge on the last corner. He was slowing down to enter the pits and he didn’t see me, this was just unlucky because I think that lap could have been good enough for the second row. Then with my last tyre my lap looked like it would be good enough for the front row but I had some problems with grip on the last two corners and I lost about half a second, so finally we are on the third row! I know I have passed many riders before here but everyone is so close now that I know it will be very hard and so it’s going to be very important that I get a good start. Luckily after the problems of yesterday and this morning we have found a good setting and a good Bridgestone tyre, and this afternoon we were as fast as Pedrosa so I think if I can manage not to lose too many places in the first few laps, then I can fight for the podium. This is my target for tomorrow.”
Nicky Hayden: "This morning we made a bit of an improvement and I was able to improve my lap time even though the track wasn’t so good,so I was quite excited, I thought we had a good chance in qualifying. At the start of qualifying I was going decent on some pretty used tyres that by the end had race distance on them, so I felt pretty good. But the qualifiers didn’t go as we wanted. We had an issue with a front wheel sensor when I went out on my third qualifier, so we had to come in and change the sensor, which lost us some time and some rhythm. Basically we didn’t get it done. I feel like we’ve got a decent pace, so the race should be OK.”
Dani Pedrosa: "Today went quite well for us, so I’m happy with my second position on the grid. Starting from the front row is especially important at this track because it’s so tight, especially the first section. All in all, it was a good session. We improved the chassis set-up so the bike is giving me a better feeling. We have met the first target of starting from the front row, so I am quite confident for tomorrow, but we still need to make some more adjustments to further improve our race pace. The forecast still says there’s a chance of rain tomorrow, so we will have to see what happens.”
Andrea Dovizioso: “I can be very satisfied about our progress made in qualifying conditions today. Using a race front tyre I found a good way to better use the rear qualifying tyre and in the last run I was able to take fourth position. Tomorrow will be different from recent race starts, as we begin the race near to the front and I will need to use at the maximum this sort of advantage to be immediately with the leaders, which is why I do think we can have a very good race. Sachsenring doesn’t require incredible levels of power, but instead it’s better to ride with an engine that has a smooth power delivery and that’s just like the one we have.
There are many of us that are close together on times, but I do expect a good ‘show’ tomorrow. The podium will be difficult to reach, but nothing is impossible. My pace is around 1m 22 ‘high’ and other riders able to do 1 22 ‘lows’. The more important target will be consistency, if we want to take maximum results.”
Colin Edwards: “We tried something different this morning and I don’t know if I woke up on the wrong side of the bed or what we tried was bizarre, even though it wasn’t far from what we had yesterday, but it just didn’t work. I threw a qualifier in early just to make sure I’d got a time in with the skies looking a bit threatening. You’d hate to be on the pace and not try an early qualifier and be back in ninth or something on the grid. Being on the front row is great for my team because it is so important here with it being so hard to pass on this track. I’ve never gone well at this track, so if somebody had told me on Thursday I’d be on the front row and ready to fight for the podium, I’m not sure what I would have said. But it’s a testament to how good everything is working well together. The bike, the tyres and the team just make a great package. I’d still like a bit more feeling on the front and it kind of feels a bit vague but I think a lot of that’s down to the temperature. We have to run a harder front for endurance and it works okay, but it would work great in hotter conditions because the surface was only about 26 degrees out there today. But the Michelin qualifiers are awesome because you can just go and push on them. It might rain tomorrow and we have been trying to sort out a wet setting with the geometry of this year’s bike and we have struggled a bit. We have a wet setting that I used to finish second at Donington last year and I used it at Donington in qualifying last month. Just about every time it rains I pull this setting out and use it. So tomorrow I’m not going to mess around and try and make something new work. I’ll just get 20 minutes of good time on that setting if its wet in the warm-up. I expect to be up there challenging at the front tomorrow because the total package is working awesome.”
James Toseland: “I made a change for the last qualifier and it was night and day difference. I found it difficult on the first three tyres and couldn’t break the 1.23 barrier. With that weight transfer problem pitching weight to the front, I wasn’t getting the best out of the extra grip from the qualifier because I didn’t have much feel from the rear going into the corners. I’ve got to say a big thanks to my guys because at the end we made a slight change to the rear of the bike and I did a 22.1. Before that I’d hit a bit of a wall. The change helped massively with the weight transfer and to go a second quicker from one qualifier to the next is a massive improvement. I’m only 11th but another half-a-second and I would have been on the front row, so I’m reasonably happy. I need to get a decent start and hold my position in the top ten because it is a long race and it could rain. Like I said yesterday, this is a tough track. The throttle control knowledge you need for this track is unbelievable. You have got to be so precise and it is almost like you have to learn which position of the throttle you need to be in rather than where you need to be on the track. Too little throttle and you’re going too slowly in the corner and too much and you run wide or it unsettles the balance of the bike. In terms of throttle control I’ve never known a track where you need to be so accurate for lines and apexes and it is so hard because you spend so much time at full lean angle.”
Jorge Lorenzo: “We’ve worked very hard this weekend and I am happy to be on the second row, it’s an improvement and with the Michelin qualifying tyres I was able to go quite fast. However with the race tyre we still have problems and it’s very frustrating; we don’t have enough grip with the rear and this means I don’t have enough confidence in the bike and I can’t ride fast. More than ever today, I am finding it very hard to understand how I was so fast earlier on in the season and now I am so slow! All we can do is keep working and not stop, in order to try to find the confidence we are lacking. I hope tomorrow that I can make the most of starting on the second row, try to stay with the leading riders and hopefully enjoy my race. I’m sorry really that Valentino was behind me on one of his fast laps, I was slowing down to go into the pits and I wasn’t aware that he was there. In fact I didn’t know anything about it until afterwards but I am very sorry that it happened, especially when he was doing such a good lap.”
Loris Capirossi: “It’s been very difficult today, but I am quite happy because with the race tyre and the set-up we have a good rhythm. With the qualifiers we struggled a little bit, but on the race tyres we made a big step from yesterday and this is very important. My condition is still not too good, but I tried as hard as I could, but I don’t really have the strength to give it 100%. It is important to follow on working on the things we have been doing this weekend and try as hard as we can tomorrow. This is a difficult track for us, but I am very positive about the race, and I will do my best as always!”
Chris Vermeulen: “We made some progress with the bike on race tyres today and I picked up about three-quarters-of-a-second on my lap-times and that put me in the top seven or eight. It wasn’t easy doing those times, but we could do them consistently on a used tyre. Unfortunately when we put in the qualifiers we weren’t able to go any quicker and the last tyre just didn’t seem to work at all, so we will need to look at that later with Bridgestone to figure out why. It sucks being so far back on the grid and it will be hard to get through on this track, but I’ll be going for it from the start and plan to make sure I get up in the top 10 early on and see where we go from there!”
Anthony West: "What a completely disappointing day. The conditions this morning were pretty difficult, as the track started wet but then began to dry out after about 30 minutes. I wasn't pushing so hard because of the track conditions, but I lost the front just as I turned into the right-hander at the top of the hill halfway through the session. It was another big crash, and it came without any warning, which doesn't do your confidence any good. We lost a lot of track time this morning, and that cost us this afternoon. We simply ran out of time to work on set-up and I just had to try and do the best I could on the qualifying tyres. But even on the soft rubber there were problems, with chatter making it very difficult to get on the gas early and make best use of the extra grip that a qualifier gives you. I'll be sitting down with my crew tonight to try and figure out how we can make improvements for tomorrow. Whatever we do it's still going to be a tough race but, as usual, I'll be getting my head down and trying to make up as many places as I can from the start."
