Despite a changeable forecast for this afternoon’s qualifying session it held dry for Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Jorge Lorenzo to secure third place on the grid for tomorrow’s Indianapolis Grand Prix. Teammate Valentino Rossi made a big improvement from practice, dropping into the low 1’32’s to take fifth.

Lorenzo started the 15-minute qualifying session from the back, leaving the pit lane last to be ensured of a clear path for his first flying laps. He quickly found his pace and led the qualifying session when he set his first hot lap of 1’32.177 seconds with ten minutes to go. Lorenzo came into the pits with seven minutes remaining for fresh rubber before returning to the track for a last five-minute dash. With less than a minute on the clock the Spaniard achieved a personal best time of 1’31.869 seconds, leaving him third, just a quarter of a second from pole man Marc Marquez. He had one lap left to improve his time, but was forced to slow his pace due to a crash by Bradley Smith and will start tomorrow’s race from the first row of the grid.

Teammate Rossi left the pits early for his first outing. With eight minutes to go the nine-time world champion put in a time of 1’32.692 seconds, moving him up to eighth position, before moving back one place as the pace quickened. The nine-time world champion then came in for a fresh set of tyres with seven minutes left and started his second outing on track five minutes before the end of the session. With 10 seconds to go he set a 1’32.160 on his eighth and final lap, moving him up to fourth in the standings until he was surpassed by Alex Espargarò. His time puts him on the second row of the grid for tomorrow’s race, just 0.541 seconds from the front.

Jorge Lorenzo - 3rd / 1'31.869 / 8 laps

“We tried a new setting during Free Practice 4 with the hard tyre but it wasn’t good. We have to understand what the problem was; if the tyre wasn’t right or if the setting wasn’t good. With the soft tyre the bike was working quite well and when we tried the hard tyre yesterday it was working really good. Tomorrow in the warm-up we will see if the feeling is ok with the hard tyre. During the qualifying I tried to put in a very good lap time. After the first try I was very satisfied with the lap. The second time I wanted to improve a little bit more but I came across so many riders waiting for a tow that I couldn’t ride like I did before. I went just two tenths of a second faster, but it was enough to give me this first row, which is a good position.”

Valentino Rossi - 5th / 1'32.160 / 8 laps

“I’m quite happy. It was possible to do a little better, especially because I was good this afternoon. During Free Practice 4 I was consistently fast, but starting from the top five is ok for the race. It would have been better to start from the first row, but it’s also ok from the top five. I’m quite happy because I’m riding the bike well. I have a good pace and we improved the setting a lot, but the rear tyre choice will be crucial. The soft and hard options are very similar, so it will be a very important decision for tomorrow’s race. Here, on the new tarmac, the track changes a lot with every practice session. It now looks like the softer tyre is becoming better while yesterday it was impossible to use, but the two options are very similar.”

Massimo Meregalli - Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team Director

“First and second row are good positions to be in for tomorrow's race. Jorge was fast from the start and definitely on good form. Vale found some clear space for a good lap on his second outing so made a big jump up to the second row which was great. We still have some room to improve and we still need to decide on tyres so we'll continue our work tonight and see what we can do for warm up tomorrow morning. We've worked hard this weekend to find a good pace for both Vale and Jorge so with a good start they can be competitive and fight at the front.”

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