Lorenzo and Spies end qualifying satisfied

Article from http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2011/Lorenzo+and+Spies+review+QP+in+Qatar

The blisteringly quick session saw the fastest riders breaking further and further into the 1'54”s as the clock counted down. With just a handful of minutes to go, the Mallorcan put the hammer down, delivering a 1'54.947 on his 23rd lap, to secure a front row start with third place on the grid.
Lorenzo's team-mate Spies was also sending out a clear message on the time sheets. The Texan gradually worked his way down the 1’55”s and was threatening to follow his team-mate into the 1’54”s, until a small mistake costing a tenth of a second resulted in a best time of 1'55.095, just 0.148s off the front row. As a result, he will start mid second row in fifth for the opening race of the season, under the floodlights tomorrow night.

Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory Racing
”There were some really impressive lap times out there tonight in the session. We are still quite far behind the front, but our goal is to finish on the podium and that is in my mind for tomorrow. My race pace is pretty good; I think I can keep running 1'55.7s or maybe 1'55.8s. We will finalise our set up in warm up and try to achieve that tomorrow.”

Ben Spies, Yamaha Factory Racing
”It was actually better to be fifth than fourth for grid position although I'd have liked to be on the front row! It wasn't a perfect session, I didn't nail a perfect lap time but you rarely do. I don't think we were too far off the maximum, maybe there were two tenths left in the bike and that's it. It's not so bad though, we have a good package to battle for the podium tomorrow. I did the best I could, so not a bad start to the year.”