PHILLIP ISLAND, Australia, 17 October 2004 — Spaniard Sete Gibernau yesterday trumped three-time world champion Valentino Rossi to pinch pole position for today’s Australian MotoGP at Phillip Island.
Gibernau, who must win here and hope Yamaha’s Rossi misses out on a podium finish to keep the world championship alive until the last race on his home Spanish track, clocked a fastest one minute 30.122 seconds for the 4.448 kilometer circuit.
The Honda racer trails Rossi by 30 points and left it until his third-last qualifying lap yesterday to snare the fastest time ahead of the Italian, who went into the final qualifying session with a best time of 1:31.222.
It was Gibernau’s fifth pole of the season and he is chasing his fifth win to keep the heat on Rossi heading into the final race before his own fans in Valencia on Oct. 31.
“For the whole year my focus has been on my team and myself because at the end that’s what I can control and whatever the other guys in the other teams do is what I can never control,” Gibernau said.
“It’s going to be a long hard race like it normally is here because the differences between one and another are not that big and there are 27 laps which is pretty long for us, so we need to keep our heads down and keep working.”
Rossi is bidding for his fourth consecutive Aussie GP win at Phillip Island and is also aiming for his 100th podium in 139 starts in the three different classes of GP racing.
Rossi has dominated the premier class and heading into today’s race has 40 wins from 78 starts for a winning percentage of 51.3, well superior to Australian five-time champion Mick Doohan (39.4 percent).
Rossi said his team’s main priority was to win the championship at Phillip Island and he may have to settle for second behind Gibernau should his bike’s race settings not be conducive.
Italian Loris Capirossi on a Ducati was third fastest with 1:30.613 with American Colin Edwards on the inside of second row of the grid with 1:30.625. Yamaha announced yesterday that Edwards will replace Spaniard Carlos Checa as Rossi’s teammate next year.
Spaniard Daniel Pedrosa, who can clinch the 250cc crown by finishing as low as 14th place today, had another nasty tumble as his sole rival Sebastian Porto of Argentina claimed pole position for today’s GP.
Pedrosa came to grief and crashed late in the qualifying session but later confirmed he would be fit enough to start in the race and vie for the one-quarter liter world title.
He has painful memories of last year’s 125cc race here when he broke both ankles in practice.
Italian Roberto Locatelli grabbed the pole in the 125cc class with a best lap of 1:37.417 with newly-crowned world champion Andrea Dovizioso to start on the inside of the second row race grid today.
