LANZI'S PODIUM IN RACE 1 SAVES THE DAY FOR DUCATI XEROX
TEAM IN QATAR
 It
was a difficult start to the year for the Ducati Xerox Team
at the Losail circuit in Qatar. In the opening round of the
2007 World Superbike Championship, Troy Bayliss and Lorenzo
Lanzi could only manage one podium between them in the two
races as Max Biaggi (Suzuki), making his Superbike debut,
and James Toseland (Honda) took the first two wins of the
year. Lorenzo clinched the final podium place in race 1 with
a superb pass on Kagayama on the penultimate lap, and finished
seventh in the second race, while Troy took a fifth and seventh.
"We knew that this weekend was going to be difficult
for us but it turned out to be tougher than expected"
declared Troy. "All weekend I'd been doing quite well
on the race tyre so I was feeling quite confident, and was
quite happy with the way race 1 went. I could have done a
lot better but I would have had to put my life on the line
so I settled for points. In the second race we thought we
couldn't do any worse and tried something different, we put
the hardest tyre in the front which we used last year and
we made a change to the rear suspension. The biggest problem
we had was at the rear however because we had no feeling at
all. It's a long year ahead, it wasn't a good start but that's
racing! For sure I'll feel much more confident at Phillip
Island, where the track is normally pretty constant and I'm
looking forward to that."
"In race 1 I succeeded in scoring a great podium finish"
commented Lorenzo. "It was a good, hard-fought result
because in the last few laps I had a great battle with Kagayama.
For race 2 we changed the suspension a bit and my 999 worked
a lot better. Unfortunately I got off to a bad start, which
lost me a lot of time in the early laps. I am sure I could
have finished fourth quite easily had the tyre not started
to turn on the rim half-way through the race which created
some ‘chattering' problems. Now that the Qatar race
is over, we look forward immediately to Phillip Island, where
we should go better."
RACE 1: 1. Biaggi (Suzuki); 2. Toseland
(Honda); 3. Lanzi (Ducati Xerox); 4. Kagayama (Suzuki); 5.
Bayliss (Ducati Xerox); 6. Neukirchner (Suzuki); 7. Rolfo
(Honda); 8. Haga (Yamaha). RACE 2: 1. Toseland;
2. Biaggi; 3. Corser (Yamaha); 4. Haga; 5. Nieto (Kawasaki);
6. Kagayama; 7. Lanzi; 8. Bayliss.
POINTS (after 1 of 13 rounds): 1. Toseland
& Biaggi 45; 3. Lanzi 25; 4. Corser & Kagayama 23;
6. Haga 21; 7. Bayliss 19; 8. Neukirchner 16. Manufacturers:
1. Honda & Suzuki 45; 3. Ducati 25; 4. Yamaha 24; 5. Kawasaki
11.
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