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2010 MotoGP Silverstone Qualifying
| | | On Saturday Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo once again demonstrated his speed and consistency by taking his first pole position of the 2010 season at Silverstone. Trailing Lorenzo were LCR Honda’s Randy de Puniet and Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa, who both posted impressive performances before crashing near the end of the session.
In what was an eventful qualifying session championship leader Lorenzo battled with De Puniet toward the last half of the event with Lorenzo taking the upper hand over the Frenchman near the end with a lap of 2’03.308.
De Puniet was able to impress onlookers when he knocked half a second off Lorenzo’s time with just 15 minutes left, and shortly afterwards managed to shave even more off his own time. In the end, however, De Puniet’s time was not was not enough to claim top position as Lorenzo stole the pole position back. In addition to posting some fast laps, De Puniet also suffered a crash that left him uninjured near the close of the session as he continued to push for the top time.
LCR Honda's Randy de Puniet took second in qualifying right behind championship leader Lorenzo.Taking the last spot on the front row was Pedrosa. Just 0.152 seconds behind De Puniet, Pedrosa saved his fastest time for the final lap on the circuit. Immediately afterward Pedrosa spilled his bike on Turn 12, and the Spaniard was not as lucky as De Puniet. He was taken off the track on a stretcher and given X-rays trackside that co nfirmed bruising to his left and right knees. It is unclear at this time if he will be competing in Sunday’s race.
Taking the first position in the second row is Pedrosa’s teammate Andrea Dovizioso. Off his teammate’s pace by just four-tenths, Dovizioso was the final rider to get within one second of Lorenzo’s pace.
The Ducati Marlboro team of Nicky Hayden and Casey Stoner took fifth and sixth respectively with just 0.062 seconds separating the teammates.
Rounding out the top-10 were Ben Spies from Monster Yamaha Tech 3, the San Carlo Honda team of Marco Melandri and Marco Simoncelli, and Spies’ teammate Colin Edwards.
MotoGP Silverstone Quali...
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