Saturday pm - This Was an Incredible Ride from Toseland
Eighth fastest, middle of the third row: the bare numbers don't look that impressive. But when you analyse what's really happening on this racetrack,
James Toseland's performance in qualifying today was stunning - I use the word deliberately.
It was wonderful to see
Valentino Rossi collecting his first pole in 17 races. But Vale's been competing and winning on Mugello's 3.26 miles for a dozen years: he knows these curves better than the road past his house in Tavullia, just over the hills.
'But Toseland's tested here a couple of times so he knows the track,' a few begrudgers are claiming in the paddock. Oh b*****x: the bloke rode a half-dozen reward laps round here on a 990 Ducati
MotoGP bike to celebrate his '04 WSB victory for Ducati, and also had a play at the launch of the 999 road bike here. But that has relation to figuring out braking and apex points when the world's ripping by at 200mph.
There's more. Not only was the Toseland actually racing here for the first time, but rain wiped out a day and a half of dry track time - a situation that's tougher for newcomers than for old hands. So when the sun finally shone this afternoon, JT had time for only a seven-lap and a three-lap stint on race tyres (not including in and out laps) before it was time to start slapping in the quallies.
"We're getting so much more traction with the qualifiers that we're getting down the straight faster and approaching the corners faster, so you almost have to recalculate your braking points and racing lines," he told me after setting his quickest lap in 1 minute 49.025 seconds. That's only 0.895 seconds slower than Rossi, who has won six consecutive MotoGP races in these Tuscan hills.
But in racing, if you don't run you rust. So warm-up tomorrow won't be just a comfy familiarisation run for Toseland, but a tense attempt to refine his race setting to compensate for all that lost dry practice time.
