Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) Powers To 14th Career Pole

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.

Related Links
www.ducati.com

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