Sachsenring (17th July 2010).- 131 milliseconds separated Dani Pedrosa from pole position in the German Grand Prix, which he will start third tomorrow. On an intensive day of work, Pedrosa was able to gradually improve his times until he secured a place at the front of the grid tomorrow, behind Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner, from where he will battle for the win in Sachsenring. His team-mate, Andrea Dovizioso, took a clear leap forward compared to yesterday's practices and finished just behind Pedrosa in fourth.
Pedrosa's relationship with the German track is so special that he is always considered one of the clear favourites to win here and today, he has demonstrated this again. The Repsol Honda Team rider got down to work preparing for tomorrow's race from the very start of the day. With the track still cold and drying out after the rain that fell over night, the Repsol rider went out on the track ready to fine tune details of the set up of his Honda in the free practice. He finished fourth, riding two tenths slower than his best time yesterday.
After overcoming the technical problems that set him back yesterday, Andrea improved his times this morning, climbing to sixth place with a best time that was half a second faster than his best time in the first free practice held on Friday. With this result, Dovizioso approached this afternoon's qualifying in different way.
As regards the qualifying session, Pedrosa completed the most laps of the German track and got into the leading positions from the beginning, regularly setting a pace of 1 minute and 22 seconds. Andrea Dovizioso also set a good race pace during the qualifying, although his best times were closer to the high end of one minute and 22 seconds.
With just 25 minutes to, Lorenzo's mechanical problems, which caused his engine to fail in the middle of the straight, red flagged the race after the oil spilt by his bike at the end of the straight caused De Puniet and Spies fall.
When the session restarted almost half an hour later, when Pedrosa was leading and Dovizioso was sixth, the minutes continued to pass by until the final minutes. Lorenzo, Stoner and Pedrosa showed that they were one step ahead of the rest of the riders and the three played their best hand to try to set the best time, which finally went to Lorenzo, followed by Stoner and Pedrosa. With the first row complete – these three riders were the only ones capable of riding at under one minute and 22 seconds -, Dovizioso secured fourth, allowing him to start from the second row of the grid tomorrow.