Impressive Pedrosa is very much the man of the moment – having won four of the last five races, including the last two from second on the grid – and will be doing everything he can to score another victory tomorrow and further close the gap on World Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) who will start from pole.
Pedrosa believes he may well have had the pace to be quickest today, but for a return of the tyre chatter issues that have dogged him at many circuits this season. The Spaniard had similar issues at Motegi last weekend, but his crew was able to largely resolve them in time for the race, which he dominated.
However, the chatter seems worse than ever here because of the nature of the Sepang circuit, which has always created this phenomenon. Pedrosa is not the only one suffering – all the fast riders have complained of chatter, a high-frequency vibration that can lead to a sudden loss of grip in the corners.
This is Stoner’s second race since returning from the nasty right ankle injury he sustained at August’s Indianapolis GP and he has done brilliantly to qualify less than half a second off pole. The injury was a major handicap in Japan last weekend, but is less so here, though it is still causing him problems, especially on the exit of right-handers because the ankle joint has only minimal movement. Stoner is also battling chatter and believes he would be significantly faster without the problem.
Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda: 2nd – 2m 00.538s
“It was hard because we had a lot of chattering this afternoon and it was very difficult to get a clean lap as in some areas the bike was chattering too much, even on the straight! Nevertheless, we managed to get on the front row again and second position is good. The pace is high and after missing FP2 yesterday because of the mixed conditions, this morning we worked hard on the race pace. I just hope that we don’t have this chattering for the race. The weather can play an important role too, so we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow afternoon.”
Casey Stoner, Repsol Honda: 4th – 2m 00.811s
“It’s been a really disappointing weekend, but especially today. We’ve had pace all weekend and the first session looked promising, but we’ve had problems with the brakes and some other small issues. Every step we take to try and improve the bike, we make it worse and it’s becoming very frustrating. Our potential is much higher than where we are currently at and now we go into the race without any real direction. Physically I’m not sure how I am going to be as we haven’t been able to complete many laps this weekend, our pace is there and I just hope that we can make some small improvements in tomorrow’s warm up.”
Repsol Honda Team Press Release
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Source: http://www.zimbio.com/MotoGP/articles/Axi36J-E1Me/Pedrosa+second+quickest+Sepang+Stoner+close
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