BAYLISS (DUCATI XEROX) SETS THE PACE AT DONINGTON
Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox Team) set the pace in first qualifying
for the European Round of the World Superbike Championship
at a cold and damp Donington Park today. The Australian's
time of 1m32.333s was well inside the long-standing best lap
set by Neil Hodgson in 2000 although it is the first time
World Superbikes have raced at Donington since 2001. Team-mate
Lorenzo Lanzi was less fortunate, crashing in the one-hour
session and ending up outside the top 16.
"It's a pretty good start to the weekend" declared
Troy. "This morning we had very mixed conditions, around
6°, and the track was quite wet. We did OK but were a
little bit hesitant and had to work our way into it. This
afternoon the track finally arrived dry towards the end of
the session and the times were quite good considering we hadn't
had any dry track time. I'm confident tomorrow if we get some
good conditions we can go quite a bit faster, but overall
the bike's feeling good and I'm happy on it so we'll move
on to tomorrow."
"I could have done without that crash at the entrance
to Coppice when I lost the front", commented Lorenzo.
"I haven't been here for six years and I'm finding the
conditions quite difficult. Tomorrow the forecast looks better
and today I just didn't want to take any risks. However I
feel that potentially I can go a lot quicker because the bike
set-up is pretty good. The crash led us astray a bit because
we then made the wrong choice of front tyre, the softer one,
and the track started to dry out and I was unable to set a
quick time. Tomorrow I'll try and improve, especially in the
last part of the circuit from the chicane to the final hairpin."
Times: 1. Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) 1m32.333s;
2. Corser (Yamaha) 1m32.817s; 3. Xaus (Ducati) 1m33.646s;
4. Toseland (Honda) 1m33.692s; 5. Laconi (Kawasaki) 1m33.729s;
6. Muggeridge (Honda) 1m34.203s; 7. Kagayama (Suzuki) 1m34.549s;
8. Haga (Yamaha) 1m34.553s; 9. Biaggi (Suzuki) 1m34.593s;
10. Rolfo (Honda) 1m35.363s; ... 17. Lanzi (Ducati Xerox)
1m36.735s.
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