Brno Superpole
 FRONT
ROW START FOR BAYLISS, LANZI IMPROVES TO ROW 2 IN BRNO HEAT
FOR DUCATI XEROX TEAM
Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) will start tomorrow's ninth
round of the World Superbike Championship at the Automotodrom
Brno from the front row of the grid after setting third quickest
time in Superpole. The 38 year-old Australian was looking
good in the first two splits but lost time in the final sector
to finish behind Max Biaggi (Suzuki). Noriyuki Haga then did
the first ever sub-2 minute lap of the Czech Republic circuit
to grab pole for Yamaha. Team-mate Lorenzo Lanzi did his quickest
lap of the entire weekend in Superpole to line up on row 2
in seventh place.
"It's pretty important to be on the front row here because
last year with the track conditions we really struggled"
declared Troy. "I was happy to set the time that I did
and was surprised Nori made 59.6 because that's a really good
job. No one has ever gone that fast on a Superbike here before.
My last split was far from perfect, I ran a little wide in
the final corner but it wasn't going to gain me four tenths
so I'm happy with that and hopefully we can do a decent job
tomorrow. They are going to be two very hard races tomorrow.
Honestly there are two choices of tyre: a soft one that everyone
will want to use and that's going to be very difficult for
the last six laps and then there's the harder tyre where you're
going to lose a second a lap right from the start, so I'm
sure we're going to see some strange things tomorrow!"
"I made a mistake right in the middle of the first corner
on my Superpole lap and for sure I lost some time there. The
rest of the lap wasn't bad so I start on the second row, which
is OK because it's a row ahead of what we have been doing
all weekend" commented Lorenzo. "I feel I've got
a good race pace so tomorrow we will try and get a good start
and do a good race with the tyres. We've still got a couple
of things to try in the warm-up as well. Conditions will for
sure be different for tomorrow's races, like last year, but
hopefully they will be a bit more in our favour and the temperature
will be lower, which should help us".
Times: 1. Haga (Yamaha) 1m59.603s; 2. Biaggi
(Suzuki) 2m00.018s; 3. Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) 2m00.034s; 4.
Toseland (Honda) 2m00.235s; 5. Corser (Yamaha) 2m00.251s;
6. Kagayama (Suzuki) 2m00.879s; 7. Lanzi (Ducati Xerox) 2m01.078s;
8. Neukirchner (Suzuki) 2m01.177s; 9. Rolfo (Honda) 2m01.234s;
10. Fabrizio (Honda) 2m01.690s.
TV Coverage (Europe): Eurosport 2 - Saturday
1715 Superpole (live); Eurosport - Sunday 1200 Race 1 (live).
Eurosport 2 - Sunday 1530 Race 2 (live). TV Coverage (Italy):
La7 - Saturday 1550 Superpole (live); Sunday 1145 Race 1 (live),
1520 Race 2 (live). RaiDue - Sunday 1730 Races 1 & 2 (highlights).
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