Rossi storms to Shanghai pole

Valentino Rossi will start tomorrow’s China GP from pole position after an awesome qualifying display this afternoon saw him smash the Shanghai pole record.

The Italian clocked the only sub 1.59 lap of the hour-long qualifying session on his 20th lap of 24 completed. His best time of 1.58.424 smashed Dani Pedrosa’s 2006 990cc pole record set in 2006 by a massive 0.6s, even though Rossi’s Fiat Yamaha 800 YZR-M1 is nearly 18mph slower than the best 990 speed set on Shanghai’s long back straight.

Rossi’s devastating burst came with 10 minutes of the session remaining after Randy de Puniet had topped the timesheets when he was the first rider to go for a soft qualifying tyre after 26 minutes.

The factory Kawasaki rider had posted a best of 1.59.985, but Rossi crushed that time on his first soft Michelin qualifying tyre.

In the first two timed sections he was a massive 0.611s and then 1.073s up through the third split on de Puniet’s time. He then gained another 0.4s on de Puniet in the last section to top the timesheets at that stage by nearly 1.5s.

He ended the session a massive 0.891s clear of American John Hopkins, who denied compatriot Colin Edwards from completing a second successive Yamaha 1-2 on the grid by just 0.091s.

Rossi actually looked on course to go even faster on his second qualifying tyre with just two minutes of the session remaining.

In the first timed split he was 0.041s up on his previous best and by the second split he was still 0.039s faster. He eventually clocked a 1.58.529 to miss out by just a tenth on bettering his previous incredible lap.

Rossi, looking to bounce back from his tyre disaster in Turkey last month that left him in 10th place, said: “Sincerely the lap was very exciting from the bike. When I see the lap time I was quite surprised. I had great grip from the Michelin qualifying tyre and our bike with this amount of grip is very good to ride. I braked at the last centimetre at every corner and I didn’t make any mistakes. I am very happy.”

Rossi though refused to get too carried away as he was wary of the threat posed by Bridgestone on race tyres. Hopkins and world championship leader Casey Stoner have been two of the most consistent riders on race rubber and Rossi said: “We are here for the 25 points but for me tomorrow it will be difficult. It will be a hard, hard race and maybe we are not the favourite, but I am quite confident.”

Hopkins grabbed second on the grid after he had ended the three free practice sessions with the overall best time. Hopkins had clocked a best of 2.00571 this morning and his best of 1.59.315 in qualifying gave him second. He admitted though he was powerless to stop Rossi’s brilliant surge and said: “The race tyres are working really ell. I did a long race run of about three quarters distance and felt really good with that. That other tyre manufacturer has sure got their qualifying tyre sorted out right now.”

Edwards was third fastest to claim his third front row start in four races as he looks to bounce from his first lap exit in Istanbul.

The Texan said: “We were playing around a little bit on the geometry to get the race tyre to work better. Its screws up the qualifying though when we got lots of grip and it might have made it a bit slower. We’ve been working our tails off and I’ve got a race tyre I’m pretty happy with but we’ll see.”

World championship leader Stoner, who goes into tomorrow’s 22-lap clash holding a ten-point lead over Rossi, was fourth quickest with a best time of 1.59.516.

Stoner was relieved to be high up the grid, as he’d completed the session on his spare bike following a technical failure that forced him to stop trackside with 20 minutes remaining.

Stoner’s Ducati GP7 failure wasn’t the only moment of incident in the session. Japanese rider Makoto Tamada crashed unhurt with 22 minutes remaining while he was 17th and he ended the session last on the Tech 3 Yamaha.

And right at the end Chris Vermeulen and Loris Capirossi crashed out together. Both escaped injury in the incident caused when the Bridgestone duo touched as Vermeulen attempted to dive under the veteran Italian.

The incident left Capirossi and Vermeulen 14th and 15th respectively on the grid.