Pedrosa wins French GP pole

Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa took pole position from Colin Edwards at Le Mans, ahead of tomorrow's French MotoGP by turning the fastest lap of 1:32.647 in the last minute of the session.

Pedrosa came out on top at the end of a thrilling hour of action, the World Championship leader making crucial chassis adjustments to outpace his closest rival by just over one tenth of a second. As ever, the MotoGP pack is tightly packed with Hayden just six tenths off pole and the fastest 12 riders covered by just 1.076 seconds. Hard-working Hayden and his crew have focused on improving corner-entry performance at this tight and complex track. The American moved up to sixth fastest in qualifying but his crew will make further changes overnight in an effort to improve his pace in race trim.

Weather conditions at Le Mans have been very changeable so far this weekend, with this morning’s third practice session getting underway on a damp track and this afternoon’s qualifying outing run in cool and mostly overcast conditions with the occasional sunny spell. There is still a possibility of rain tomorrow.

Dani Pedrosa, pole position, 1m 32.647s
“I’m very satisfied with today’s result. It’s my first pole position of the season and that’s especially good at this track because it’s very important to have a good grid position here. Today we made some small chassis adjustments, fine-tuning the machine. This afternoon I wasn’t able to get the maximum out of my first two Michelin qualifying tires, so we made some more changes to the chassis settings and that allowed me to make a big step forward with my third qualifier. I didn’t expect to get pole with my fourth qualifying tire but I did, so we’re very happy. As far as race pace goes, I’m quite satisfied but there are a lot of strong riders going very fast here and the lap times are all very close, so I hope we can make another step forward for tomorrow. The other question mark is the weather. It’s been very changeable and we still don’t know what to expect for the race."

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