Edwards seals front row start at Shanghai

Camel Yamaha Team rider Colin Edwards will start from the front row of the MotoGP grid in tomorrow's Grand Prix of China after setting the third fastest time in a dramatic single qualifying session today. After battling through torrentially wet conditions yesterday, the riders enjoyed a cloudy but dry free practice this morning as they sought to find a suitable dry set-up for their machines. The afternoon started in similar conditions but a brief rain shower midway through the session confined the riders to a tense spell in their pit garages before a thrilling late shootout for grid positions. Whilst Edwards battled for the top spot with eventual pole setter Dani Pedrosa (Honda) and second-fastest John Hopkins (Suzuki), his Camel Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi was unable to repeat the kind of form that saw him dominate proceedings in the wet conditions yesterday. The Italian was one of several riders to struggle with a lack of dry practice time as he looked to iron out set-up problems and find his pace. He now faces another battle through the pack after setting the 13th fastest time, meaning he will start from the fifth row of the grid. Colin Edwards (3rd; 1'59.383, 15 laps) "This has been a really strange weekend because we started off by finding a setting for the wet and then converted it to the dry - usually it is the other way around! I felt so comfortable with the bike yesterday and I was disappointed when I saw that I was down in thirteenth, but I knew the reason for that and I was really confident about today. I can't really explain why we were off the pace in Turkey but have been right on it here in China, because we have hardly touched anything with the bike, just played around with the suspension. We've got some chatter in certain areas of the track but it's worse when the grip is good, especially when we put a qualifying tyre on. On race rubber you can hardly notice it so I think we have a good setting to go the distance tomorrow and I am happy with my tyre choice. I've had some decent starts to races so far this season but haven't been able to maintain the pace, so hopefully I can turn that around tomorrow. It feels good to be back on the front row." Valentino Rossi (13th; 2'00.720, 18 laps) "For sure we have a lot of problems and it's disappointing to be back in this position again after such a good day yesterday. When the grip becomes normal again, like today, we have a lot of chatter and it's very hard to ride the bike. Really this situation is quite bad, as the chatter has returned again today and it is similar to how it was in Jerez. Now we have to start from the fifth row and so it's going to be a very hard race. We have talked a lot tonight in the garage and now we will try some things in the morning during warm-up and hope that we can make some final improvements. Now I need to ride a defensive race, try not to make any mistakes and try to take as many points as possible."  Davide Brivio - Camel Yamaha Team Director "A very good result for Colin - it's been a while since he was on the front row so it is good to see him back there. He seems much more comfortable on the bike and it's good to see that he is able to ride it so effectively. Unfortunately Valentino wasn't able to follow up his good performance from yesterday with a similar result today, so we will have to take a look at the data with the engineers and try to come up with some ideas for the warm-up tomorrow." Clouds clear to allow progress for Tech 3 Yamaha Team The rain clouds of the opening day cleared sufficiently to permit steady progress for the Tech 3 Yamaha Team during Day Two of the Polini Grand Prix of China at the technically demanding Shanghai International Circuit. However, the solitary qualifying session for all important grid positions was briefly interrupted when a light sprinkling of rain covered the circuit to curtail proceedings for a quarter of the one-hour period. With a new batch of Dunlop qualifying tyres, team riders Carlos Checa and James Ellison secured 14th and 17th positions respectively, the most encouraging aspect for the team being both riders are closer to the leading lap times than in previous Grands Prix. With race weekend's doubling as tyre tests, it has confirmed that the team is heading in a positive direction in both wet and dry conditions. Carlos Checa (14th, 2'01.052, 18 laps) "Considering everything that has happened with the weather, it hasn't been too bad. In the morning session on race tyres we have found a direction to move forward and now physically I'm feeling ok after my injuries from Jerez. I have all my strength and gives me more confidence to push hard for the entire race which is quite important to me. I hope tomorrow can be a dry race as we have a few solutions to try in the warm-up and we'll see if we can improve a few other areas to make better and better. The front tyre is working quite well, but the rear we need to increase grip and stability. We already know the race tyre but after the break in qualifying we couldn't run any more race tyres tests as we had to use the new qualifying tyres to make sure we kept within range of the others". James Ellison (17th. 2'02.088, 16 laps) "The qualifying tyres are working quite well now. We've made a massive improvement compared to what we have done previously. I'm also just a second from Carlos and that is the closest I've been all year which is another encouraging sign for me. Tomorrow in warm-up we're going to try the race tyre I prefer which is a slightly bigger one and run the whole session with it. With the bigger tyre we have found the stability we were missing so that's a good confidence boost and if the temperature is hotter as the forecast indicates that's going to help us as well. We've been making big improvements every session this weekend and we're getting closer on the race set up considering we really only had that one hour session this morning. During a meeting we have to test qualifying, slicks and wet tyres so it's hard to find a race setup but that's what we have to do. After four races we've now found a good direction to push forward and unlike other teams we have no data from previous years to work on so with everything considered I think that we are finally making the progress we have been aiming for". Herve Poncharal - Tech3 Yamaha Team Director "We've had a good two days and given a lot of information to Dunlop about wet weather tyre development. Carlos found a good feeling with his tyre for the dry and so did James. We've done all our times since Qatar on race tyres but now the qualifying tyres seem to be working well. Carlos is in between Elias and Rossi which shows we are between good riders and different bikes. I'm very pleased with James this afternoon. I'm sure when James gets some more confidence he will improve a lot. Hopefully the race will be dry, because nobody has done a lot of laps but we are happy. We are progressing and we are improving. We won't win the race or be on the podium tomorrow but we are performing our mission as we started from scratch with Dunlop. Also, now that Carlos is recovered I think it will help him racing more aggressively and more comfortably".     Round: 4 - 2006 MotoGP Shanghai Circuit: Shanghai Circuit Length: 5451 Lap Record: 2' 13.716 (Alex Barros, 2005) Fastest Lap Ever: 1' 59.009 (Daniel Pedrosa, 2006) Date: 13 May 2006 Temp: 19ºC Session 1 :  Pos.  Rider  Manufacturer  Nat.  1st Qualifying 1  D. Pedrosa  Honda  ESP   1' 59.009   2  J. Hopkins  Suzuki  USA   1' 59.373   3  C. Edwards  Yamaha  USA   1' 59.383   4  S. Nakano  Kawasaki  JPN   1' 59.570   5  N. Hayden  Honda  USA   1' 59.574   6  S. Gibernau  Ducati  ESP   1' 59.639   7  C. Stoner  Honda  AUS   1' 59.890   8  M. Melandri  Honda  ITA   2' 0.014   9  R. De Puniet  Kawasaki  FRA   2' 0.044   10  L. Capirossi  Ducati  ITA   2' 0.078   11  M. Tamada  Honda  JPN   2' 0.176   12  C. Vermeulen  Suzuki  AUS   2' 0.304   13  V. Rossi  Yamaha  ITA   2' 0.720   14  C. Checa  Yamaha  ESP   2' 1.052   15  T. Elias  Honda  ESP   2' 1.275   16  A. Hofmann  Ducati  GER   2' 1.972   17  J. Ellison  Yamaha  GBR   2' 2.088