Movistar Yamaha MotoGP rider Jorge Lorenzo claimed third place on the grid for tomorrow’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone this afternoon following a tense qualifying session that saw teammate Valentino Rossi take sixth on the second row.

Lorenzo was clearly eager to start the session as the first rider to line up at the pit line exit for the overcast 15-minute session. His first hot lap was a 2’01.798 followed by a 2’01.771 that was good for provisional second place. With six and half minutes left Lorenzo then returned to the pits for a fresh rear tyre.

Returning quickly to the track, the Spaniard dropped a time of 2’01.175 to secure provisional pole position until his rivals' last minute hot laps pushed him to third at the end.

Teammate Rossi wasted no time at the start of the session to put in his first flying lap. The nine time world champion soon dropped under the 2’02 mark with a 2’01.893, after which he immediately returned to the pits. With just over five minutes remaining he was back on track to pick up the pace and delivered a 2’01.550. The time was good enough to secure the second row in sixth place.

Jorge Lorenzo - 3rd / 2'01.175 / 7 laps

“I’m very satisfied and very proud of my lap time. I pushed to the limit and I improved six tenths of a second on the last lap compared to my first try. The soft tyre on the front is much better for our bike. I would like to use it tomorrow, but it will be a long race, so we have to improve the bike a little bit more during the warm-up to be more comfortable with the harder tyres. This year the engine and the clutch are different. I don’t have the same feeling, making it difficult to make similar starts to last year. Starting from third place of the grid is not the best position, because you are too much on the inside for the first corner, but it is still better to be on the first row than to be on the second. It’s a good position. Let’s try to improve the bike for tomorrow and try to stay with the front group during the race.”

Valentino Rossi - 6th / 2'01.550 / 7 laps

“I’m a lot less worried and more satisfied about today, because in both practice sessions we were more competitive and we can fight for top positions. We made good progress with the bike compared to yesterday. Unfortunately I’m not 100% happy about my qualifying, because I could do better. I could have had a little bit more potential to stay at the front, but starting from the second row is not a disaster. It’s good for the race. We have to fix some small problems that I have under braking and corner entry and try to improve for tomorrow. Yesterday we didn’t balance the bike well and I had big troubles with the front tyre, so when I entered the corner I suffered a lot with all the bumps. This circuit has a lot of them, but today the team improved the set up and the balance a lot and we improved the lap times a lot too.”

Massimo Meregalli - Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team Director

“Considering the issues we were having yesterday we are satisfied to be on the first and second row. The team worked very hard overnight to find solutions to Friday's issues and we were able to give both Jorge and Vale a more competitive package today. They've also made it count this afternoon and put in a great effort to secure the grid positions. There are two or three good hard braking points were there are overtaking possibilities so we have the potential to have a good race. For sure we still have the opportunity to improve the set up further so we will work to find an extra step for the morning warm up.”

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