Rossi: Great fun, but tight battle tomorrow.

Valentino Rossi led a Fiat Yamaha one-two in Saturday's qualifying session at Istanbul, but expects a 'tight battle' tomorrow after just 0.176secs covered the top three riders.

Rossi has been the stand-out Michelin rider all weekend, the Italian being surrounded by Bridgestone riders as he set the fourth fastest Friday time, before the increasing grip and track temperatures on Saturday levelled the playing field further. The French rubber manufacturer then appeared to hold the upper hand with qualifying tyres and locked down the entire front row, with Rossi's team-mate Colin Edwards second and Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa third.

"I'm very happy to have a pole position at this track, which has never been one of my favourites!" smiled Rossi after his second pole of the season. "I've had some bad moments here in the past but this year it feels like a different track for me and I'm having great fun! My M1 is very competitive, a lot more fun to ride here than in the past and the new modifications we have for our engine have made an important difference to our overall performance.

"The team has done a great job because we had some problems yesterday but they've found some good solutions and now Colin and I are first and second. My tyres are working well and we've found the right front for tomorrow. We need to make a final decision about the rear in the morning. With the qualifying tyre my bike really flew and I was able to do a very good lap; I started my first lap a few minutes earlier than the others and then I knew that I could improve a little bit more with the second qualifying tyre. Anyway all three of us are very close on the front row so I think it's going to be a tight battle tomorrow. Let's hope for good weather and see what happens."

Edwards' best eventually held off Pedrosa by just 0.027secs, marking a dramatic leap in performance after his 15th place on Friday.

"Well after the problems we had yesterday I've got to say a massive thanks to my team. They looked at the issues, got out their protractors, did their maths and worked their magic like always!" declared Edwards. "The Michelin qualifier really sticks like glue for us this year and I was able to really push it. I thought I was going to run into traffic at one point on my last lap but I just kept my head down and somehow came out the other side in front. It was definitely a mistake-free lap.

"As for tomorrow, we need to work a little bit on our race pace - two tenths would be good but three would be even better!" he admitted. "I think we're losing it in T3 so we need to concentrate on that part of the track. We've moved onto a different front from the 'old faithful' we've been using so far this year because that one was a little bit too close to the limit here, but it's working really well so we just need to make a final decision on the rear. It's a great result for the team to have us both on the front row again so let's hope to make the most of it with a similar result tomorrow!"

"Our bike seems to be in great shape for qualifying this season as is shown by the results - Valentino has been on the front row in all three races and Colin twice," pointed out team director Davide Brivio. "The team have done a great job as usual as they had a few problems to fix after yesterday, so well done to them. Our situation for tomorrow's race isn't so bad either but it's very important to be starting in front as it's going to be a hard battle. We have a few things to check with both riders in the warm-up tomorrow and some fine-tuning to do, but we can definitely be competitive and fight until the end."

As well as Pedrosa, the Fiat Yamahas are expected to face a stiff challenge from practice pace setter Casey Stoner and his Ducati Marlboro team-mate Loris Capirossi.

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