A super heated last qualifying session of the season at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit this afternoon saw Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi rise to the top to start tomorrow’s Gran Premio de la Comunitat Valenciana from pole position. His teammate Jorge Lorenzo will start directly behind him from fourth place on the grid.

Rossi clinched his first pole since Le Mans 2010 by lingering in the pits for a little while at the start of the session, allowing him to fully focus on a lap time once he entered a relatively empty track. Putting down a 1’31.765, the nine-time World Champion briefly set provisional pole. He went on to further improve his time but not his position with a 1’31.614 lap, leaving him in eighth place with eight minutes of the session remaining. Rossi then returned to the pits for fresh rubber and was back out again two minutes later. He became one of the key protagonists in an incredible fight for pole as the times started to drop into the 1’30s. His improvements continued as he initially set provisional pole with a 1'31.198 lap. He later got pushed back to fourth but, with one lap remaining after the flag had come out, he dropped a final time of 1’30.843 to take the 50th pole in his MotoGP career and his 60th pole over all classes.

Teammate Lorenzo was also one of the last riders to get on the track this afternoon. Once out he immediately fired off a fast lap and set provisional pole with a 1’31.726, before getting pushed back to eighth as the pace quickened. He went on to improve with a 1’31.421 to rise back up to second and with seven minutes remaining returned to the pits for a fresh rear qualifying tyre. Three minutes later he was back out and continued to improve his time when he put in another hot lap of 1’31.049, to move up four places to second. He looked good for a front row until a flurry of late activity from other riders pushed him to fourth position, on the second row.


Valentino Rossi - 1st / 1'30.843 / 8 laps

“Getting my 50th pole position in my MotoGP career is a great achievement. It was a bit of a surprise, I didn’t expect it. I knew that I could do a good lap time because I felt really good with the bike. When I pushed the times were already not so bad, but on the last lap I was able to give a little bit extra. To get another pole position after four years is quite emotional. I like it a lot and I’m very happy, especially because it will be very important for tomorrow’s race.”

Jorge Lorenzo - 4th / 1'31.049 (+0.206) / 7 laps

“Fourth place is good, keeping in mind that all the riders’ times are very close. I tried to do some good lap times. I did one fast lap but I made a mistake in the second and I went wide and I lost one or two tenths of a second. Valentino was behind me and he improved his lap time and went in front. This happens sometimes and you can lose some positions because of it. Our rivals are really competitive and they can take slow corners really late and exit corners very easily with a lot of acceleration, but we are not so bad. We have a great pace. The race is going to be long, so it won’t be easy but we have a lot of potential to win the race.”

Massimo Meregalli - Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team Director

“It is incredible to see Valentino on pole, especially at a place where in the past he has struggled to go fast. Jorge’s times also looked good today. He was consistently fast, so it’s a pity that he lost the first row at the end of the session as he deserved to be there. He has a good rhythm and he has won many races here, so I think we can be optimistic for tomorrow. We’re still not satisfied about the settings; compared to yesterday we made a big step in the right direction, but there are still some things that we need to improve. The race will be 30 laps, which is quite long. This is quite difficult to manage, not only physically for the riders, but also technically and tyre-wise. We’ll try to find something tomorrow morning that will hopefully give us some benefits.”

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