Ducati Teams Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden will start tomorrows Japanese Grand Prix from the third and fourth rows of the starting grid, respectively.

 In todays qualifying session, both riders improved their performance compared to the free practices, but while the Italian was relatively satisfied with the work carried out over the course of the four sessions, the American had hoped to find a better setup.

In tomorrows morning warm-up session, Rossi will look for a few final setting refinements, while Hayden will try to make some changes in order to improve his consistency.

Valentino Rossi

The position, ninth place, certainly isnt the greatest, as I had hoped to start from the second row. Still, I think that we worked well. We improved in every session, and again in qualifying today we made good progress. 1:45.9 is a nice time, half a second faster than last year, even though it wasnt enough to be further forward. Anyway, we managed to lap at a decent pace and more consistently, and thats positive. Tomorrow well see if it will be enough and if well be able to move up some positions. Well also have to decide tomorrow which tyre to use, depending on what the temperature is.

Nicky Hayden

Today didnt really go any easier than yesterday. I had some problems at the start of qualifying and couldnt get a good rhythm, but once I started putting the soft tyres in, the grip improved and the bike felt better and better. Then at the end, I had a lot of front chatter that was holding me back, including on my best lap, and there were a lot of waving yellow flags on my last run that didnt help. Unfortunately, I didnt really get in a good lap, and I didnt have a good rhythm either. Still, the team is working hard and hopefully tomorrow we can improve and try to do a decent race.