Casey Stoner needs a 10 point advantage in the championship standings to mathematically secure the 2011 World Title, and Jorge Lorenzo will try to keep the pressure on Casey Stoner for as long as possible.

Lorenzo came out fighting for today’s qualifying session and was on the pace quickly, but it was not enpugh to hold off Casey Stoner and he eventually had to concede pole position to Stoner.

Ben Spies had a tough qualifying session, the American crashed out after suffering a high-speed low side on his third lap. Spies was taken to the clinic for check-ups and eventually returned to the track on his second bike. Despite heavy bruising, SPies was able to get himself into 7th place on the grid for tomorrow’s race.

Jorge Lorenzo – Position 2nd – Time 1.30.448 – Laps 24
“We did a very good job today. We tried many things and I believe we have the right set up for tomorrow. I have to thank my team who worked hard to make sure I have the best possible bike to fight with. The race will be very tough, it will be very important to be consistent with a good race pace. I will try to win, I know it will be very difficult here with Casey but I will try!”

Ben Spies – Position 7th – Time 1.30.835 – Laps 20
“I got a little bit off line in qualifying this afternoon and hit a big bump, losing the front. It’s unfortunate as we were trying a different bike set up which was looking pretty good. It happened on the third lap, according to the data I came off at 270km/hr so I went through the gravel trap pretty quick! My knees, ribs and elbows are all pretty banged up but that’s normal, that’s how it is. The bike is working well so we need a good start; we’re in a good position on the grid for it so we’ll see what happens.”

Wilco Zeelenberg – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager
“A good qualifying for us, Jorge was more than half a second quicker than this morning’s final practice so we are quite pleased. Again another strange session, some parts of the track lost some grip which seemed to affect everybody. We haven’t decided on tyres for tomorrow yet but the bike feels good for him and we are looking forward to the race. It’s going to be difficult to stop Casey but we’ll do our best.”

Massimo Meregalli – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director
“The race is not going to be easy tomorrow. Jorge is starting from the first row which is important, I’m sure he won’t give up until the end and he will have to put all his efforts in for the whole 27 laps. Despite a bad crash Ben managed to qualify in seventh. This wasn’t so bad considering, as I didn’t expect that result. He’s very sore all over but he still pushed hard and did all he could. Tomorrow will be tough and painful for him but we know him and we know he will give 100%.”

Spies struggled in the morning session and finished 8th, but managed to adapt his set-up for the second session to finish in 4th.

Jorge Lorenzo – Position 2nd – Time 1.30.744 – Laps 24
“Today I felt great in the morning but in the afternoon not as good. It was impossible to replicate the lap time from the morning. We were up to five tenths slower and I’m not sure why, maybe the track conditions were different, anyway we’ll see what happens tomorrow. We know that Casey is very fast here but today he wasn’t so quick. We must try to win and if not possible fight for the podium on Sunday.”

Ben Spies – Position 5th – Time 1.31.495 – Laps 36
“I’m feeling good today; we started this morning with both bikes not working so well so we knew we had to come up with something this afternoon. The second session we were working really well but still struggling in a few areas we need to make better tomorrow. I think we definitely can and if we do I can see us dropping up to half a second pretty easily. It’s up to the boys; we know what the problem is we just need to work out how to fix it. As always I’m going to try the best I can to make it interesting for the fans and get up there.”

Wilco Zeelenberg – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager
“It was quite a good day for us today, the morning session especially was a little bit better than the afternoon. Everybody seemed to have less speed on the straight which was strange as there wasn’t much wind. Jorge feels confident on the bike and has space to improve, especially with rear grip. The gap between him and Casey was quite close this morning so we are quite satisfied with the first day.”

Massimo Meregalli – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director
“We had some problems from the morning session with Ben which we partly solved in the afternoon allowing him to get more and more comfortable on the bike. There are still some points where we have to improve and work on but it seems that we know what we need to do. Hopefully the track will be dry tomorrow morning so we can see if we get the results we expect from the changes. Overall the pace is good and our tyre choice is almost done so for a first day we’ve done a great job. Jorge was very quick to find a good pace this morning. He still needs to find something but we are confident he will also make another step tomorrow.”

Spies had to all but abandon the second free practice session and will be seeking treatment from the Clinica in order to improve things for tomorrow’s qualifying session.

Jorge Lorenzo is not without issues of his own, despite a solid start it seems that it will take a lot of work in order to beat the 3 Repsol Honda’s that dominated both Free Practice sessions.

Jorge Lorenzo:
“We improved the lap time quite a lot from the morning to the afternoon session but it’s still not enough, the competition is very strong here. It is going to be a very difficult weekend to fight for the podium and the victory. We are trying some things on the bike to improve the stability on braking and into corners. We found a little but still need to find some more! We are fifth which could be worse today.”

Ben Spies:
“What a shocking start to the weekend, I don’t think I’ve ever been as sick as I was on the journey over here, I was nearly not allowed on the plane. I’m slowly getting my strength back thanks to the great guys at Clinica but didn’t have enough to ride properly in the second session. I started to get tunnel vision on the straight and just felt it was too dangerous to be out there. I’m working with Clinica today and tomorrow and am sure things will be a bit better for qualifying and the race. I’m really sorry for my team and all the Japanese fans who came to watch today.”

Jorge Lorenzo made the weekend’s hard work count today, taking his first ever Aragon Grand Prix podium with third place. Having dropped from fourth on the grid in the early laps, the reigning World Champion gradually picked up the pace, running well under his qualifying time to gradually reel in the front runners. By lap 10 he had caught both his team mate Ben Spies and Marco Simoncelli, passing them both to take third which he held to the line. The results mean the gap to Championship leader Stoner has now increased again to 44 with four races remaining of the season.

Meanwhile, Ben Spies had probably his best start of the season so far, shooting off the line to outride both Stoner and Dani Pedrosa for the lead into turn one. Having then dropped to third the Texan was maintaining a gap to fourth, scoring the third fastest lap of the race on lap four with a 1’49.593. A dramatic drop off in grip on the sixth lap then affected his pace. He was passed by team mate Lorenzo and then Simoncelli, dropping to fifth place. The result sees Spies retain fifth in the Championship standings, now 24 points behind Pedrosa in fourth as they head to Motegi next week.

Jorge Lorenzo – Position 2nd – Time +14.209
“We struggled a lot from the beginning of the race, losing positions and having to recover step by step. We couldn’t get more than a podium; that is the best result we could get today! I didn’t have confidence in the rear and it is impossible to catch Dani on this track. It’s a pity, but at least I got the podium I couldn’t get last year. We are still fighting for the Championship and that’s the most important thing, we are going to Japan with hope still alive.”

Ben Spies – Position 5th – Time +27.739
“I knew the start wasn’t going to last long the way Casey and Dani were riding but I felt pretty good in the beginning. Even when we got to the fourth or fifth lap I thought our advantage to fourth place was growing. I felt really comfortable and thought we had a podium fight in us. Then the sixth or seventh lap the tyre just made a huge drop and just kept going down. Usually they make one drop then stay consistent. I had no confidence in the rear and no grip. I’m frustrated as before that we were riding well and the bike was working great.”

Wilco Zeelenberg – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager
“For Jorge P3 was maximum damage control so we are happy with the result today. This morning we discussed that this was the maximum possible. Finally in the race he was going half a second faster than in qualifying which is pretty good so he must be happy to be on the podium. I’m sorry for Ben, tyre drop off means you can’t do anything; luckily we didn’t have that problem. We had a lack of grip in the beginning and couldn’t do 49s but were very consistent on low 50s which is the only reason we were able to finish in third place. The team worked really hard all weekend to deliver the best possible set up for Jorge, so a big thank you to them.”

Massimo Meregalli – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director
“The drop in temperature this afternoon probably compromised the work we’ve done up to this morning in set up. Ben really couldn’t do more because the rear tyre was really bad after just a few laps. Jorge achieved the best result possible, I think he did good job and thinking about the final championship standings, third place is still a good result. For sure it doesn’t make it so easy but we’ll keep going to the end.”

Lorenzo had originally stated that he would not take part in the race, but since the publication of the Dorna commisioned report on environmental radiation around the Motegi circuit that declared it safe, some initial rider resistance has softened.

Yamaha also confirmed that Ben Spies will also race at Motegi. The full, but short, press release from Yamaha can be read below:

Press Release:
Yamaha Factory Racing herewith confirms the attendance of its riders Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies to compete for round 15 of the 2011 MotoGP World Championship at Motegi in Japan on 2nd October.

The Yamaha Factory Racing team will race in Yamaha’s WGP50th Anniversary red and white livery for the 4th time this year at the home GP of team owner Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.

Jorge Lorenzo has gone all 1980s for this weekend’s MotoGP at Brno by wearing a custom helmet based on Top Gun.

Lorenzo’s helmet is a copy of the helmet that Tom Cruise’s character, Maverick, wore in the film.

So does this make Ben Spies ‘Goose’?

Photos of Lorenzo’s Top Gun helmet below:

Amazingly, Lorenzo was able to fight through the pain and take pole position later in the Qualifying session.

Lorenzo is now only 15 points behind Casey Stoner as the teams head to Laguna Seca.

Ben Spies and Jorge Lorenzo give their thoughts on the German MotoGP at Sachsenring below:

Jorge Lorenzo – Position 2nd – Time +1.477
“I’m very happy! It has been a fantastic race today. From the middle of the race I got very tired in my left hand so I didn’t know where I could find the force to push and keep pushing to the end. Then Casey stopped the bike a lot two corners from the end so I took profit from it, opened full throttle and in the last corner I went for it. It was a miracle pass! This race is very important so we are very proud and happy with the result. I have to thank my Yamaha crew who worked very hard to give me a fast bike all weekend, they have been fantastic.”

Ben Spies – Position 5th – Time +10.719
“Unfortunately I got to the front group a little too late but I tried as hard as I could. I just lacked some rear grip in the beginning, I tried to be consistent and hope they came back to me because I couldn’t run the pace they were running in the beginning. Lap time wise it was probably the most consistent I’ve ever done in a race. We caught up to them with three laps to go and then all hell broke loose. Simoncelli started trying to find a way past Dovizioso and every time I tried to look to go past one of them was on one side of the track and the other on the other side. It was fair play, they were racing each other but it kind of messed up my game plan! Simoncelli ran wide at the end so I got him again in the last corner. I wish we could have got Dovizioso because we had the pace, we just ran out of laps.”

Wilco Zeelenberg – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager
“A great result, of course we would have liked to win it but it was clear that Dani had a little bit extra, he’s very good at this track and was also strong last year. To make up four championship points in the last corner at the end of the race is of course great, especially mentally for Jorge. The rest of the season is coming up and we’re closing the gap with still a few races to go!”

Massimo Meregalli – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director
“A good weekend for us, we are catching Stoner. I think Jorge did a really great job and a very impressive last lap. He saw a door almost open and he just went in and took the place cleanly, a perfect job. Ben had a big lack of grip but he was really consistent; he did almost all the race at the same pace. I don’t think he could have found an additional tenth of a second. Fifth place is not so bad looking at the pace and I think he could have finished fourth with a couple more laps. We are looking to Laguna Seca now, and I am confident we can make another step forward.”

Casey Stoner was the real beneficiary of Marco Simoncelli’s crash with Jorge Lorenzo. Lorenzo now has a 28 point deficit to Stoner in the Championship Standings, a tough gap to close with Stoner’s current form.

Lorenzo speaks out on the Dutch MotoGP at Assen and gives his views on Simoncelli below:

Jorge Lorenzo – Position 6th – Time +44.536
“Of course Simoncelli doesn’t want to throw me off the track, that wasn’t his intention but I think he is not very conscious about the risks in this class with these tyres. I thought he learnt from the past and the polemic he created with Dani but it’s clear he hasn’t learnt. The good thing is that we finished in sixth and took some points. I was fast with a good pace. The championship is now more difficult so we have to go all out to win races and go fast. We are making changes to the bike that are making it better with stability to brake harder and deeper so I think we can go to Mugello and be more competitive like Ben demonstrated today. I want to say a big congratulations to him for his first GP win and also thank you to all my guys who again worked really hard all weekend to give me a competitive bike.”

Wilco Zeelenberg – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager
“A very tough race, mixed feelings here as we are very disappointed by the action with Simoncelli, It was a racing accident but pretty stupid. I’m happy for Ben that we were able to win here for the 50th Anniversary race. It’s good to see we are able to win and it was also good to see Jorge picked up quickly and was able to do very good lap times so we know the speed was there. I know we would have been able to fight for the podium. I have to congratulate Ben he did a great job this weekend and I feel sorry for Jorge as he didn’t deserve this result.”

Spies felt he was prevented from grabbing pole position due to the yellow flags that were brought out after Loris Capirossi suffered a crash.

Spies showed a solid and consistent pace lap after lap which bodes well for the race tomorrow and should see Spies aiming for a podium finish.

Ben Spies:
“The best qualifying of the year so far, it was a good session for us. We would have liked to get pole position but unfortunately on my fast lap Loris went down and there were a lot of yellow flags. I want to be a little bit upset but I want him to be ok a lot more than I wanted pole position. All in all it was a great qualifying, the bike is working really good, race pace is good so I’m confident for the race tomorrow. I don’t know what kind of weather we are going to get so we’ll see how it goes.”

Jorge Lorenzo:
“Today has been a complicated practice and qualifying. We made many stops in the morning session and in the qualifying. The most important thing is we can see that our closest championship rivals are pretty close but I know we still need to make a step forward to be better. I have had problems in the fast corners today, I didn’t have so much grip on the rear so we have work to do for tomorrow. I’m very confident the team will do a good job to be ready to fight for the podium for the 50th Anniversary. Obviously the weather is not helping and we should be ready for both wet and dry conditions.”