Combined class press release:
Superpole Spots For Broc And Jamie
Broc Parkes and Jamie Hacking each made it onto Superpole qualifying at Misano, but could not progress beyond Superpole One, after a weather-affected second day of practice.
After a first day of extreme heat and dry track surfaces, today’s action was conducted with occasional rain showers, and a fully wet second qualifying session welcomed the riders to the track this morning. That meant that Parkes and Hacking, and the entire top 20, qualified for Superpole due to their Friday practice times, even if they gained some valuable wet practice time today.
Going into Superpole Parkes was fifth fastest and looking strong for a close to pole. Hacking was 20th on day one, as the stand-in rider for team regular Makoto Tamada learned his way around the tricky Misano circuit.
After using race tyres early in the first 12-minute Superpole session Parkes and Hacking were out of time to improve their best laps on qualifying tyres, and thus were unable to continue their charge to challenge eventual Superpole winner Jakub Smrz.
Broc Parkes:
“We had a good opening day and finished fifth in first qualifying but we have been struggling a bit with some things today. We didn’t really find a cure, and in Superpole I made a bit of a mistake on my qualifying tyre, ran wide on one corner, so I didn’t really get to put in my best lap. We started out on a race tyre and then went to a qualifying tyre. A lot of guys went better on their qualifying tyre in their second flying lap because on the first lap it maybe wasn’t giving full grip yet. This isn’t what we wanted after such a good start yesterday but tomorrow we will see what we can do for the race.”
Jamie Hacking:
“We are still struggling a little bit in putting the racetrack together, and it didn’t help that everything has had to be rushed because of the changes in the weather. I have not had a chance to really concentrate on what I am doing with the bike. I have been behind a bit. The bike settings were coming together in the free practice before Superpole, and I was feeling more comfortable with the bike and my lines, but then I lost the front in turn three, so that didn’t do too much for my confidence. If I can calm down a little bit, and maybe we can hit the set-up just a little bit better, then things will be OK for us. It will be tough in the races to start from that far back, but as long as we put in some solid laps I think we will be OK.”
Katsuaki Takes Front Row Start
Katsuaki Fujiwara’s ambition to take a top four start came to life after a professional and high paced ride in a wet and dry qualifying session put him on the front row of the grid for Sunday’s race.
This is Katsuaki’s second front row of the season, and a positive omen for Katsuaki is that after qualifying fourth in Spain he went on to secure a top five race finish in the Valencia race.
Joan Lascorz finished tenth in a qualifying session that had both wet and dry periods, and ended with another very light rain shower with only two and a half minutes to go. After suffering a crash early the session, in wet conditions, Lascorz was unable to push as hard as he wanted in the final laps, and had to settle for tenth, and a third row start.
There is only one official qualifying session for each WSS race in 2009, but on a boiling hot first day, with track temperatures over 50°C and air temperatures into the mid 30s, Lascorz was second fastest in practice, on settings based on the previous Miller Motorsports Park race. Fujiwara was tenth at that point before turning it into fourth today.
Katsuaki Fujiwara:
“Everything went not so bad today, and it came step-by-step. For wet or dry we have some track time already but today it was not really full rain. We rode for most of today with dry settings and just adjusted things a little as the track surface changed. Whatever conditions we have tomorrow we will be starting from a good position on the front row. We worked well today, so I hope we can take a good advantage tomorrow.”
Joan Lascorz:
“Yesterday we started out with a good base set-up from the race in America, and because of that we knew we could come back to it if we needed to. So we tried a few more radical things with the suspension and set-up but they did not work out the way we hoped. We went back to more normal settings in the afternoon qualifying session but I fell in the rain early on. I think the lack of dry track time, and getting mixed up with other riders when I was trying to go for a faster lap at the end, stopped me from improving my time and starting position. There were some spots of rain on my visor towards the end, so I was not sure how hard I could push again.”
