by Mark Appleton
Jorge Lorenzo was quick to the top of the timesheets at the final qualifying of 2012 and the final ever one hour qualifying session as in 2013 we move to a Formula 1 style qualifying.
Lorenzo sat on top for around ten minutes until his arch-rival Dani Pedrosa took his spot off him. In third place sat Cal Crutchlow with Stefan Bradl and Casey Stoner close by.
Pedrosa remained on top for just two minutes until Lorenzo came back and hit a 1.32.099 and then many riders came into the pits for further tweaks.
This was how it remained for the remainder of the session until 15 minutes were left on the clock. Behind Lorenzo, Bradl came up to second with 13 minutes remaining pushing Pedrosa into third position.
The final 13 minutes proved to be the time when everyone went for it, Stoner blitzed the field leaping to the top from fourth with a 1.31.568 and then Crutchlow followed him and hit second.
Two minutes later and Pedrosa had pushed Crutchlow into third but both riders were pushing hard and regularly under Stoner’s time in the splits but couldn’t make it count overall.
Eight minutes left and Lorenzo finally made a move to come up to second, Bradl was in fifth with Andrea Dovizioso in sixth and Bautista in seventh.
One minute later and Lorenzo took the provisional pole position with a 1.31.483, this sparked Stoner, who was sat in the pits, to zip up his leathers and come out for another go.
And with two and half minutes left Stoner took the provisional pole with a 1.31.428 on his first serious out-lap, behind him his team-mate Pedrosa was on a scorcher and he completed a lap record with a 1.30.844 taking the final 990cc lap record held by Valentino Rossi. This wasn’t Rossi’s only bad news of the session as Aleix Espargaro then passed him on the timesheets taking tenth.
In the dying seconds Lorenzo managed to put in a lap to split the two Honda’s on the front row.
The MotoGP race report and results from Valencia is available here.
- Dani Pedrosa (26) – Repsol Honda Team – 1.30.844
- Jorge Lorenzo (99) – Yamaha Factory Racing +0.351
- Casey Stoner (1) – Repsol Honda Team +0.584
- Cal Crutchlow (35) – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +0.668
- Stefan Bradl (6) – LCR Honda MotoGP +0.913
- Andrea Dovizioso (4) – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +0.951
- Nicky Hayden (69) – Ducati Team +1.659
- Alvaro Bautista (19) – San Carlo Honda Gresini +1.741
- Hector Barbera (8) – Pramac Racing Team +1.761
- Aleix Espargaro (41) – Power Electronics Aspar +1.990
- Valentino Rossi (46) – Ducati Team +2.033
- Randy De Puniet (14) – Power Electronics Aspar +2.502
- Karel Abraham (17) – Cardion AB Motoracing +2.598
- Colin Edwards (5) – NGM Mobile Forward Racing +2.609
- Michele Pirro (51) – San Carlo Honda Gresini +3.127
- Katsuyuki Nakasuga (21) – Yamaha Factory Racing +3.135
- Danilo Petrucci (9) – Came IodaRacing Project +3.136
- Ivan Silva (22) – Avintia Blusens +3.563
- Roberto Rolfo (84) – Speed Master +4.022
- James Ellison (77) - Paul Bird Motosport +4.074
- Hiroshi Aoyama (73) – Avintia Blusens +4.519
- Claudio Corti (71) – Avintia Blusens +5.687
