Assen, 26 June: Qualifying for the Ducth Grand Prix was run in dry conditions today with ambience temperature of 23°C despite cloudy skies welcomed the MotoGP riders at the 4.555 Km race track this morning. After yesterday’s storming first position in the free practice no. 1, the LCR Honda MotoGP racer Randy De Puniet could not take a big advantage from the soft tyres ending the day in 10th position.

Despite a small crash in this morning free session, the Frenchman and his squad, continued their TO DO list chasing the best set up for the Dutch track. However the 28-year-old riding the Honda RC212V no. 14 struggled with rear grip and could not perform as he expected clocking his best lap time of 1’37.473. The seventh round of the season gets underway at 14:00 local time with Rossi heading the front row followed by Pedrosa and Lorenzo.

De Puniet – 10th – 1’37.473

De Puniet – 10th: “After this morning crash we decided to go for a longer run to confirm our race set up. Basically we have an acceptable lap time on race tyre but I struggled with rear grip on the edge. We do not have to much time to work on that and so we moved to soft tyres but we could not really improve our lap time. The bike slid to much and do not want to take any risk. We expected a better grid position after yesterday’s performance but it’s not the end of the world. I am hoping to get a top eight finish”.


Qualifying Practice:

1  Rossi (1’36.025)
2  Pedrosa (1’36.110)
3  Lorenzo (1’36.393)
4  Stoner (1’36.633)
5  Edwards (1’36.760)
6  Capirossi (1’36.953)
7  Vermeulen (1’37.194)
8  Dovizioso (1’37.237)
9  Toseland (1’37.323)
10 De Puniet (1’37.473)
11 De Angelis (1’37.637)
12 Kallio (1’37.749)
13 Hayden (1’37.759)
14 Melandri (1’37.948)
15 Elias (1’38.136)
16 Gibernau (1’38.453)
17 Canepa (1’38.605)
18 Takahashi (1’38.619)
19 Talmacsi (1’39.407)