BAYLISS (DUCATI XEROX) STORMS TO PROVISIONAL POLE IN FRIDAY
QUALIFYING AT PHILLIP ISLAND
Phillip Island (Australia), Friday 3 March: Troy Bayliss
continues to make the headlines for the Ducati Xerox Team
on his return to World Superbikes. The Australian former world
champion set a time of 1m33.387s in glorious conditions at
the spectacular Phillip Island track to take the provisional
pole today. Ducati Xerox team-mate Lorenzo Lanzi was fifth
quickest in the cooler morning free practice session, but
was outside the top 16 in qualifying. Brazil's Alex Barros
took advantage of a Bayliss slipstream to record second-quickest
time while former Ducati Xerox rider James Toseland (Honda)
and Troy Corser (Suzuki) make up the provisional front row.
"Things went well this morning for the first exit, and
I expected to go quite a bit faster in the second session
but actually in the end the track was quite hot and a bit
slower and I only bettered the time by a tenth of a second"
said Troy. "I stayed out and did ten laps on the race
tyre and my second-last lap was only two-tenths off my best.
So it all went quite well but took a little while to get going,
then in the end it all came together. We'll see how tomorrow
goes, we've got second qualifying first thing in the morning,
when it'll be cooler and I think it's going to be better.
I didn't know Alex was behind me, which was when he did his
time, but I know he's going to be coming in the future anyway,
that's no problem. All I know is that I was consistent on
my race tyre and that's the main thing at the moment. At the
end of the session the guys thought I was only going to do
3 or 4 laps to see how the bike was, but it was feeling really
good so I ended up doing 10 and ran out of petrol on the way
into Honda corner but luckily I could roll all the way back
to the pits!"
"We started off with a rear tyre that was too soft and
this led us astray for a bit, and as we only have a limited
number of tyres available, we couldn't put on another set
to do a quick time" declared Lorenzo. "This morning
I went well so I'm pretty relaxed about everything. For tomorrow
we had already decided to have the extra tyre that we didn't
use today. For sure tomorrow the weather will be fine and
the times will come down because it won't be as hot in the
morning session. It's a pity we made the wrong tactics because
it meant that we went in the wrong direction immediately at
the start of the session".
TIMES: 1. Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) 1m33.387s;
2. Barros (Honda) 1m33.790s; 3. Toseland (Honda) 1m33.851s;
4. Corser (Suzuki) 1m33.868s; 5. Kagayama (Suzuki) 1m34.461s;
6. Martin (Petronas) 1m34.501s; 7. Haga (Yamaha) 1m34.577s;
8. Walker (Kawasaki) 1m34.589s; 9. Chili (Honda) 1m34.601s;
10. Nieto (Kawasaki) 1m34.618s; ... 21. Lanzi (Ducati Xerox)
1m35.202s.
TV COVERAGE: Eurosport (Pan European): Sunday
5 March - 0200 SBK race 1 (live), 0730 SBK race 2 (delayed);
Eurosport 2 (Pan European): Sunday 5 March - 1545 SBK race
1 (delayed), 1715 SBK race 2 (delayed). La7 (Italy): Sunday
5 March - from 1400 onwards SBK races 1+2 (delayed). Fox Sports
(Australia): Saturday 4 March - 1545 Superpole (live); Sunday
5 March - from 1130 onwards SBK races 1+2 (live).
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