Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Bautista takes home pole in Spain

Bautista takes home pole in Spain

Alvaro Bautista took his third pole position of the year to lead a one-two-three for Aprilia and for Spain in front of the Barcelona home crowd ahead of the 250cc Grand Prix of Catalunya.

The Aspar rider, who had already set provisional pole yesterday, snatched top spot by 0.131 seconds in the closing moments of the 45-minute session from Lotus rival Alex Debon thanks to a lap of 1:45.636.

Team Toth Hector Barbera qualified third, 0.426 seconds behind Bautista, ahead of Metis Gilera rival Marco Simoncelli.

The Italian, who clashed with the Spaniard at the beginning of last week's race at Mugello, was given a verbal warning for that accident today by race direction despite being cleared of any responsibilities last Sunday.

The second row of the grid will be headed by the Aprilias of Mattia Pasini and Hector Faubel, along with the Honda of Yuki Takahashi and the KTM of Hiroshi Aoyama, who crashed with three minutes of the session remaining.

The KTMs of championship leader Mika Kallio and Julian Simon round up the top ten.

STARTING GRID Pos Rider Bike Time 1. Alvaro Bautista Aprilia 1:45.636 2. Alex Debon Aprilia 1:45.767 + 0.131 3. Hector Barbera Aprilia 1:46.062 + 0.426 4. Marco Simoncelli Gilera 1:46.295 + 0.659 5. Mattia Pasini Aprilia 1:46.363 + 0.727 6. Hector Faubel Aprilia 1:46.594 + 0.958 7. Yuki Takahashi Honda 1:46.668 + 1.032 8. Hiroshi Aoyama KTM 1:46.856 + 1.220 9. Mika Kallio KTM 1:46.952 + 1.316 10. Julian Simon KTM 1:47.121 + 1.485 11. R.Locatelli Gilera 1:47.190 + 1.554 12. Thomas Luthi Aprilia 1:47.207 + 1.571 13. Aleix Espargaro Aprilia 1:47.422 + 1.786 14. Karel Abraham Aprilia 1:47.510 + 1.874 15. R.Wilairot Honda 1:47.510 + 1.874 16. Lukas Pesek Aprilia 1:47.666 + 2.030 17. Manuel Poggiali Gilera 1:47.728 + 2.092 18. Fabrizio Lai Gilera 1:47.818 + 2.182 19. Alex Baldolini Aprilia 1:49.272 + 3.636 20. Eugene Laverty Aprilia 1:49.392 + 3.756 21. Russell Gomez Aprilia 1:49.618 + 3.982 22. Imre Toth Aprilia 1:49.776 + 4.140 23. Daniel Arcas Honda 1:50.186 + 4.550 24. D.T.Pradita Yamaha 1:50.450 + 4.814

  • Kallio leads KTM 1-2 at Shanghai
  • Debon takes dominant maiden win
  • Chilton takes wet pole at Rockingham
  • Simoncelli snatches win from Bautista
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