Puig quietly confident after Pedrosa´s first 2008 pole

Speaking to motogp.com having seen his Repsol Honda World Championship-leading rider Dani Pedrosa achieve his first pole position of 2008, Alberto Puig was keeping his cards close to his chest with regards to the young Spaniard´s prospects of victory at the Alice Grand Prix de France.

An exciting qualifying session saw the fastest 12 riders covered by just 1.076s at Le Mans, with Pedrosa making a late dash for pole with a time of 1´32.647 on his penultimate lap, when it had looked like fellow Michelin-equipped rider of Tech 3 Yamaha, Colin Edwards, would take a second successive top grid slot.

Pedrosa ultimately came out on top at the end of a thrilling hour of action, making crucial chassis adjustments to outpace Edwards by just 0.127s, but his manager Puig is still well aware of the big challenge Sunday will bring, due to the competitiveness of the premier class and the possibility of rain.

`Frankly speaking the pole is important but not that important for us,´ said Puig cautiously. `What is really important is the pace and the race result so at the moment I can´t say too much. We are standing by and waiting for tomorrow´s result, that is all.´

`The other guys are also very fast and there are lots of things we have to check tomorrow,´ continued Puig. `First of all we have to see if the conditions are ok and the weather is good, and then try to make a good start, see if we can get a good result going step-by-step.´

`It is never easy and especially here at Le Mans, if you make a mistake it is not so good. You have to be very focussed throughout the race, and we will see how it goes.´

Meanwhile, Pedrosa himself added, `I´m very satisfied with today´s result. It´s my first pole position of the season and that´s especially good at this track because it´s very important to have a good grid position here.´

Explaining the process which had led to his late push for pole the Honda factory star stated, `Today we made some small chassis adjustments, fine-tuning the machine. This afternoon I wasn´t able to get the maximum out of my first two Michelin qualifying tyres, so we made some more changes to the chassis settings and that allowed me to make a big step forward with my third qualifier. I didn´t expect to get pole with my fourth qualifying tyre but I did, so we´re very happy.´