MotoGP : Rossi facing uphill battle to win title at Motegi - September 17th 2005

1. Round: 12 - Motegi MotoGP
2. Circuit: Twin Ring
3. Temp: 31ºC
4. Weather: Sunny
5. Circuit Length: 4801
6. Lap Record: 1' 48.524 (Makato Tamada, 2004)
7. Fastest Lap Ever: 1' 46.363 (Loris Capirossi, 2005)

Gauloises Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi faces a difficult task at Motegi tomorrow and he aims for his twelfth consecutive podium finish this season. The Italian starts from his worst grid position since the start of the year after setting the eleventh fastest time in this afternoon's single qualifying session, whilst his team-mate Colin Edwards is also expecting a tough race as he lines up two places behind the reigning World Champion in thirteenth.

After two practice days beset by unexpected setbacks, Rossi squeezed every possible second out of the hour long afternoon session before launching his qualifying attack. However, as the time ran down he was unable to beat the chequered flag for one final attempt on a qualifying tyre and could only look on as he slipped further down the order with other riders posting their fastest times of the session.

Both Rossi and Edwards knocked over a second off their times from yesterday but it was not enough to challenge for a top placing on an ultra-competitive grid. Loris Capirossi (Ducati) will start from pole position after setting a new record time of 1'46.363 ahead of John Hopkins (Suzuki) and Marco Melandri (Honda).

Valentino Rossi (Gauloises Yamaha Team), 11th - 1'47.563;

"This morning we made some good progress with the setting of the bike and we were quite fast, but in the afternoon we went in the wrong direction and it was probably our worst session of the season. Michelin has done a very good job to come up with a competitive race tyre but unfortunately we weren't able to get the best out of it today. In the end we had a bit of bad luck, running out of time when we tried to change the rear tyre a couple of minutes from the end. Anyway, tomorrow we will go back to the setting we had this morning and use the extra data we gathered in the afternoon to try and make some more improvements, although I think all the riders can only dream about the pace Capirossi had today. The last time I was so far back on the grid was at Qatar last year but I made a lot of positions up over the first four laps so I will try to do that again, only this time finish the race!"

Colin Edwards (Gauloises Yamaha Team), 13th - 1'47.678;

"We actually went forward with the setting of the bike today and between turns four and nine we are good. The problems are the sections before and after that, with the long straights and heavy braking. We're going from 300km/h down to almost zero, basically, and I don't have enough feeling on the rear. If you are a couple of inches off the line into those corners then you lose some vital tenths. Usually the bike is more forgiving than this but for some reason we're struggling with it here and this is the worst circuit for it to happen. We'll see what we can work out in the morning but whatever happens it isn't going to be an easy race starting from so far back."

Session 1:

8. 1, L. Capirossi, Ducati - 1' 46.363
9. 2, J. Hopkins, Suzuki - 1' 46.861
10. 3, M. Melandri, Honda - 1' 46.867
11. 4, M. Tamada, Honda - 1' 47.043
12. 5, M. Biaggi, Honda - 1' 47.089
13. 6, N. Hayden, Honda - 1' 47.166
14. 7, S. Gibernau, Honda - 1' 47.168
15. 8, C. Checa, Ducati - 1' 47.232
16. 9, K. Roberts, Suzuki - 1' 47.257
17. 10, A. Barros, Honda - 1' 47.562
18. 11, V. Rossi, Yamaha - 1' 47.563
19. 12, A. Hofman, Kawasaki - 1' 47.594
20. 13, C. Edwards, Yamaha - 1' 47.678
21. 14, S. Nakano, Kawasaki - 1' 47.878
22. 15, T. Ukawa, Moriwaki - 1' 48.194
23. 16, R. Rolfo, Ducati - 1' 48.733
24. 17, T. Elias, Yamaha - 1' 48.861