On Saturday afternoon at the Mugello circuit in Italy Dani Pedrosa concluded a positive qualifying session after another day of hard work in preparation for Sunday afternoon's Italian Grand Prix, securing a second row grid slot.
After earning a direct passage to Q2 in a very close morning FP3 session, Dani focused on refining the setup of his RC213V in FP4 before fighting hard in qualifying. His 1'46.999 time, less then 2 tenths off a front-row position, will see him starting his 265th GP tomorrow from the fifth place on the grid (putting him fifth on the list of riders with most GP starts, matching Angel Nieto).
“I think all in all, we achieved a good qualifying result, because at this track it's quite easy to be followed and lose some positions,” he said. “But in the end, I think fifth is a good result. Lap times weren't extremely fast, maybe because it was very hot and it was difficult to do good lap times.”
“Anyway, we worked a lot with the tyres, gathering the information to make our choice tomorrow. There are several other riders with a good pace, but we must focus on our bike and tyres, trying to do our best with them, to get a good start, to be strong in the first couple of laps, and then to keep up a good pace.”
