Considering he's never been to this track, I'd say both of us impressed compa.
About the session, almost everybody went down. I hope Aoyama is ok. I really want him to do well this year.
It seems all of the crashes were front end issues. I'm thinking that rear tire is pushing the front quite a bit. The top 3 look to be a lock barring a DNF (which is very probable tomorrow). However I think we will see a much different picture from the rest of the order. I fully expect Rossi to be in top 5 tomorrow. For anybody tempted to think his front end wash is the end of the world, consider that Yamaha had three similar problems, and we are talking Yamaha here, a very front end stable bike. His practice sessions were decent but that 2nd bike proved to b a dog. Tomorrow they will have his A bike together. Nicky on the other hand, I won't be surprised to see him out of the top 10 in the race.
Hopkins did well in Qual. He finished only 0.125 behind Rossi and 0.093 from the next guy Barabara. Behind Edwards from 9-15 are within a half second of eachother, where Hopkins is basically 0.31 behind positions 9. If you look at it in terms of gap, consider that Spies' gap is larger to Lorenzo at .6 than all the riders from 9-16 are from eachother. I'd say he will finish in the points come race (yeah, not earth shattering in such a small field, but that's something better than a few that thought he's be 2 seconds off the pace).
