Hungarian 14 year old Peter Sebestyén remembered that he loves riding in the rain in time to take command of a very wet practice day for Saturday's Italian round of the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup at Mugello.

The more regular front runners Sturla Fagerhaug and JD beach were 2nd and 3rd fastest with Cup leader Luis Salom down in 18th after a fall in the first qualifying session put his bike out of action for the second.

“I've always loved racing in the rain but I haven't had a wet race for so long that when we went out in the wet for the free practice this morning I thought I had forgotten how to do it”, said Sebestyén. “This afternoon I just concentrated on being relaxed and smooth and it started to come back to me. As I started to enjoy it I went quicker and quicker.”

It was American 16 year old JD Beach who dominated the first of the two qualifying sessions and gave notice that he has every intention of jumping from second to first in the Cup standings this weekend. “I was pretty useless this morning in the free session. Then I watched the 125 GP practice and said to myself, 'well if they can lean over that far then I've got to do the same otherwise I've got no business being a racer.'”

The self analysis obviously worked, as for brief moments in the afternoon's first qualifying session Beach was 4 seconds quicker than anyone else. In the end Matthew Hoyle cut that advantage to 2 seconds but in trying to reduce it even further Hoyle crashed and with the bike damaged could take no part in the second qualifying. The 17 year old Briton slipped to 15th by the end of the second period.

The track was still soaking wet as second qualifying began but the rain eased through the session and the rivers of water that had been streaming across the circuit eased slightly. As the times improved it was Beach and Fagerhaug along with Japanese 13 year old Daijiro Hiura, winner of the Portuguese round, who looked most likely to end up fastest.

Hiura then fell. “I was braking hard and changing down through the gears. The rear locked, then gripped and threw me off”, he said, fortunately unhurt. He ended up 4th fastest and suddenly it was Sebestyén's name that was moving up the leaderboard. Beach realised that his position on pole was under threat.

“People had been telling me to cool it after the first session but I realised that I was going to lose pole so I just went out and pushed a bit harder”, said the American. “I put in a better lap but then had a big slide and high-side and was almost thrown off. I twisted my ankle and that made it tough to lean off to the right. Still it's the front row and I'm looking forward to the race, I don't care if it's wet or dry.”

It wasn't only Beach who was testing the limit in the hunt for pole. Fagerhaug grabbed it with a lap to go and was determined to make sure of it with his final lap. “I like riding in the rain but we haven't done too much of it this year and I wasn't too comfortable early on. I started getting into a good rhythm though and the lap times were coming down in the second session.”

“Then on the last lap I was coming down to the second-to-last chicane and that's downhill. The front end just locked on the brakes and I thought I was off, the handlebar was wrenched out of my right hand and then suddenly I got my hand back on the bar, I was still on the bike and I just ran off the track without crashing. A lucky escape, I think it's going to be a great race, wet or dry, I don't care.”