James Toseland (Winston Ten Kate Honda) made a strong early statement of intent with the fastest time of the opening qualifying session at Brno, a new best lap on a race weekend of 2'02.349, some 0.374 seconds ahead of his closest opposition. His good early pace in the hour-long session was rewarded with provisional pole position, as a sudden heavy fall of rain at the end of the session froze the leader board with James at the top. His team-mate, Karl Muggeridge, was a more than respectable fifth overall, like James capitalizing on the experience gained in a comparatively recent tyre test at Brno, despite a drop off in grip levels since the test.
With one more timed qualifying session scheduled at Brno, and then Superpole to determine the final grid positions of the top 16 qualifiers, both Toseland and Muggeridge have opportunities to consolidate and improve their respective positions.
Ronald Ten Kate - Team Manager“Quite a good start to the race weekend and although it is only the first day, this is a very good place to start from. James put a good lap time in really quickly and after that he could concentrate purely on race settings and getting endurance from the tyres; which was good for us. Also Karl was fast immediately and we also had the luxury to concentrate on the race set-up and race tyres. We have seen an incredible track temperature of 52°C during that afternoon session, so we will see where we end up tomorrow. I hope the temperature will drop off a bit over the weekend, because I think this is almost too much. I am sure we can improve the bike even more for tomorrow.”
James Toseland - (1st position - 2'02.349)“I knew the temperature was going to go up and up, so we needed to test the softer tyres, to see if they would last the race. We decided to put the softer tyres in at the beginning, when it was slightly cooler, and the track conditions were better. So I set a good early time and that stood through the session. Then the rains came and that stopped anyone going even faster. The bike is working well, so I'm happy.”
Karl Muggeridge - (5th position - 2'03.058)“The track has changed a lot here since the test - not so grippy - so I am giving a lot of problems with the rear grip. So we are going to look into that. The problem now is that the bike is not compressing enough so I am just spinning with the rear. The bike is handling really well, and everyone is having the same problems with the track surface. But right now we have to focus on how we can get out of the corners faster. Once we have done that, and I'm confident we can, we should be OK.”
First Qualifying: 1. Toseland - Winston Ten Kate Honda - 2'02.349
2. Nieto - Kawasaki - 2'02.723
3. Lanzi - Ducati - 2'02.847
4. Haga - Yamaha - 2'02.904
5. Muggeridge - Winston Ten Kate Honda - 2'03.058
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