Rossi eyes morning improvement to stick with Stoner

On the front row for the fifth time this season, Valentino Rossi was pushing for pole onboard his Fiat Yamaha M1 in Assen. The 2007 racewinner has beaten poleman Casey Stoner previously at the Dutch track, but believes that the morning warmup will be crucial for his chances to keep up with the fight with the Australian alive. Meanwhile, teammate Jorge Lorenzo will be battling from seventh on the grid.

Valentino Rossi - Third

`Like always, the front row is our target and so we are happy with this third position. Anyway it´s better than last year, when I was 11th! We made some small modifications with the qualifying tyre and today everything seemed to work very well. Now we hope that it will translate to the race tyre, although of course we have to wait and see what the weather is like before we can make a choice, things change so quickly here! I was able to try for pole and I thought it was possible on the last lap, but unfortunately I had a small problem with the last tyre. Today we were all very close, closer than yesterday, but I think we still need to improve a bit more if we´re going to be sure to be able to fight with Casey, so we will try to finalise things tomorrow morning.´

Jorge Lorenzo - Seventh

`Today was a bit better than yesterday and I felt stronger, even if the improvement is still not what I hoped for since Donington. With race tyres we still have some problems, although it was better than yesterday with a new setting, but with my Michelin qualifying tyres I was able to push more and seventh is not so bad for us today. The front riders are very fast here and we know that to stay with them is going to be very difficult, but I have more confidence today and so I hope that I can be at least in the top seven. If I can do this I will be happy. We still have to go step-by-step and if I can improve a bit again tomorrow then I hope to be able to push more within the next two or three races.´