TROY BAYLISS (DUCATI XEROX) POWERS TO 14TH CAREER POLE WITH
RECORD-BREAKING LAP AT DONINGTON
 Troy
Bayliss (Ducati Xerox Team) set a record-breaking lap time
of 1m30.370s at the Donington Park circuit to power to his
14th Superbike career pole. The Australian, who turned 38
yesterday, was seven tenths clear of second-placed Yamaha
man, Noriyuki Haga and a full second quicker than Régis
Laconi (Kawasaki) and James Toseland (Honda), who make up
the front row of the grid. Lorenzo Lanzi made a massive improvement
today to shoot up to fifth place after qualifying fourth in
today's final session.
"There seemed to be a lot of wind out there, I didn't
do the first section well and went a bit wide on the left
down through Craner but tried to keep cool for the rest of
the lap" declared Troy. "I was a little bit disappointed
as I thought I could do a 29.9 because, although most of us
are pretty even on the first two splits, I'm really strong
on the last section of the track. That could come in handy
tomorrow because it's a long hard race and that's a good place
to pass up the inside. We tried a long-run this afternoon
but times started dropping off after about thirteen laps,
so we tested another tyre, the lap times were a bit slower
but we're very confident for the race. It's looking good for
us, hopefully there'll be some good weather and some good
racing for everyone."
"Fifth place is not bad but I thought I could get onto
the front row" commented Lorenzo. "I said yesterday
that I had to improve in the final split but instead of improving
I made a mistake on my Superpole lap. At the penultimate corner
I came in too fast and didn't open the throttle quick enough.
I thought I could have done a low 1.31 lap which would have
been enough for the front row. However it's OK, the feeling
with the bike is good, race set-up is not bad either so we'll
see how it goes tomorrow. From Friday to Saturday we have
changed quite a lot to improve the feeling even though I had
a crash today. I'll try and get a good start tomorrow. I'm
right behind Troy on the grid so for both of us to get away
from the rest would be great!"
Starting-grid: 1. Bayliss (Ducati Xerox)
1m30.370s; 2. Haga (Yamaha) 1m31.084s; 3. Laconi (Kawasaki)
1m31.377s; 4. Toseland (Honda) 1m31.399s; 5. Lanzi (Ducati
Xerox) 1m31.504s; 6. Xaus (Ducati) 1m31.686s; 7. Biaggi (Suzuki)
1m31.689s; 8. Corser (Yamaha) 1m31.132s; 9. Muggeridge (Honda)
1m32.077s; 10. Nieto (Kawasaki) 1m32.178s.
TV Coverage : Eurosport (Europe): Sunday
1 April, 1100 GMT race 1 (live). British Eurosport (UK): Saturday
31st March, 2000 Superpole (delayed). Sunday 1 April, 1200
race 1 (live), 1530 race 2 (live). Eurosport 2 (Europe): Saturday
31 March, 1500 Superpole (live). Eurosport (Italy): Sunday
1 April, 1300 race 1 (live). La7 (Italy): Saturday 31 March,
1650 Superpole (live), Sunday 1 April, 1250 race 1 (live),
1620 race 2 (live).
|
