MotoGP: Lorenzo Celebrates Birthday With Pole in Jerez

Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo celebrated his 26th birthday in style today, taking pole position in qualifying for tomorrow’s Gran Premio Bwin de España at the Jerez de la Frontera Circuit in Southern Spain. The reigning World Champion was the man to beat for the second day of the Grand Prix weekend, starting qualifying at the front with a blistering 1’38.876 lap on his first qualifying tire. The time remained unbeaten until Lorenzo came out on his second tire and delivered a stunning 1’38.673 on his sixth lap to secure the number one slot on the grid in front of his home crowd.

Valentino Rossi was one of several riders to fall victim to front end crashes in the hot qualifying session. The Italian was unable to save his M1 on his right knee on the fast right hand turn 11 on his fastest lap, resulting in a dramatic crash with just two minutes of qualifying remaining. Luckily Rossi was uninjured and was back smiling in the pit garage shortly afterwards. His quickest lap of the session was 1 ’39.300, putting him on the second row of the grid in fifth, 0.627 seconds from his teammate on pole.