James Toseland (Winston Ten Kate Honda) made a very positive start to the final round of the championship, running out second fastest at the same circuit he won the 2004 title on, despite concentrating more on machine set-up for race conditions than going for a single blitzing lap. The track was wet in the first session and delivered less grip than during a recent test in the timed session in the afternoon. Toseland is out to score an overall second in the championship in 2006, and a grandstand battle is promised, as his rival for that placing was the quickest rider on day one, Noriyuki Haga.
Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda) set ninth quickest time on his second machine, another strong result as it was running an experimental set-up, and yet the Aussie rider was still firmly in the top ten.
Ronald Ten Kate – Team Manager“Quite a good first day for us, because we did quite a lot of work with the electronics on James’s machine, and with the set-up side of the bike we have not pushed too much to make a single fast lap; we are concentrating on the race set-up more. We are immediately at the top of the sheets anyway, so we didn’t have to worry about the lap times too much. We know the direction now, and the track conditions were quite particular today, different to the test we had here three weeks ago. The surface looks in really strange shape, but it might improve for tomorrow, so we will have to see what happens. At the moment, race set-up is the main issue to work on.”
James Toseland – (2nd Position – Fastest Lap 1’40.734 - 25 laps)“It was a strange day on track, first of all with the grip level and then the wind picking up at the end there. In testing we did 1’40, 1’40, 1’40, so it was quite frustrating for me today. But we still ended up second. Because of the track conditions, the bike felt quite a lot different to ride, and not as easy to be consistent. I was running wide and I wondered why it was difficult to stop. Plus, the rear grip goes down quite a lot as the tyre goes down, and that made it very difficult to stop the bike into the corner. More so than any other track. I put new tyres in, so I know why we have these problems now. For Sunday and the race, we need to make a change, because now we understand why things are the way they were.”
Karl Muggeridge – (9th Position – Fastest Lap 1’41.044 - 24 laps)“My first bike had something interesting happening with the gearbox, so we had to move to the second bike. That had a completely different chassis setting, an experimental one, so we put some tyres in and we went out, with only 20-minutes left. The first lap was OK, in the low 1’41s. I could see the time ticking away but it was more important for us now to get the bike right if that is the bike we end up using. So just continued with the tyre I had, and did quite a few laps, and I feel confident with it. As far as the time is concerned, I am sure we can go faster. Sometimes things happen for a reason.”
First Qualifying: 1. Haga - Yamaha - 1'40.474
2. Toseland - Winston Ten Kate Honda - 1'40.734
3. Lanzi - Ducati - 1'40.821
4. Pitt - Yamaha - 1'40.872
5. Corser - Suzuki - 1'40.936
9. Muggeridge - Winston Ten Kate Honda - 1'41.044
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