Equal on times but Haga edges the glory. The SBK development teams enjoyed a fruitful three days test session at Eurospeedway Lausitz, evaluating the latest crop of Pirelli tyres at the self-same track they will race on when the SBK series stops off in Germany in September. Both race tyres and qualifying rubber were tried out at Lausitz, by teams representing all of the major manufacturers involved in both SBK and World Supersport championships.
Fastest overall - in both race and qualifying trim - proved to be Yamaha rider Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia). He had his best qualifying tyre time (1'37.6) matched by Troy Corser (Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra) but went marginally faster than the Aussie rider on race rubber, edging ahead in the final analysis. Haga's best race tyre time was also matched by Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox), who was third quickest with a qualifying set-up, having made two long runs on race rubber to test ultimate tyre endurance. The Ducati team broke off testing early, having completed their planned body of work.
The best SBK lap previously recorded (in qualifying trim) was 1'39.019, the race lap record being 1'39.679. Only four riders failed to beat the previous best qualifying best at some stage of the test.
Fast Starter Keeps It Up Haga proved to be equal quickest out of the blocks on day one, taking the joint fastest time with Bayliss after a single day of action, and kept up the good pace from then on, eventually beating his own personal best Lausitz race lap by 1.5 seconds, with a race tyre fitted.
On day two, Bayliss and Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia) were the new fastest riders, until the final day reduced the best times still further.
The Winston Honda Ten Kate squad of James Toseland and Karl Muggeridge spent large amounts of time working with their new electronics packages, and this contributed to each not breaking through the 1'39 barrier, with the English and Aussie riders setting an identical best time of 1'39.0, while using race tyres. Toseland did not improve this on qualifying tyres, while Muggeridge did not use a qualifier. The next port of call for all involved is Brno, for round seven, on 23 July.
World Superpsort:In the Supersport class, the planned appearance of injured championship leader Sebastien Charpentier (Winston Ten Kate Honda) proved to be optimistic, despite his assertion that he will ride at Brno in the forthcoming race weekend.
The Supersport pace was nonetheless as blistering as expected, with Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes (both Yamaha Motor Germany) scoring the quickest times, comfortably under the previous Brno WSS best of 1'42.017.
Times: SBK - R = Race Tyre, Q = Qualifying Tyre
1, Noriyuki Haga (Y) R 1'38''2, Q 1'37''6
2, Troy Corser (S) R 1'38''4, Q 1'37''6
3, Troy Bayliss (D) R 1'38''2, Q 1'37''8
4, Andrew Pitt (Y) R 1'38''3, Q 1'38''1
5, Lorenzo Lanzi (D) R 1'39''0, Q 1'38''5
6, Yukio Kagayama (S) R 1'38''4, Q 1'38''6
7, James Toseland (H) R 1'39''0, Q 1'39''7
8, Karl Muggeridge (H) (H) R 1'39''0, NO Q
9, Chris Walker (K) (K) R 1'39''5, Q 1'39''2
10, Fonso Nieto (K) R 1'39''7, Q 1'39''5
11, Steve Martin (P) R 1'40''1, Q 1'40''1
12, Craig Jones (P) R 1'40''5, NO Q
WSS:1, Kevin Curtain (Y) 1'41''6
2, Broc Parkes (Y) 1'41''7
3, Kenan Sofuoglu (H) 1'41''8
4, Christian Zaiser (D) 1'42''4
5, Kai Borre Andersen (S) 1'42''6
6, Barry Veneman (S) 1'42''9
7, Maxine Berger (K) 1'43''6 (crash day three, day two time given)
Related Linkswww.worldsbk.com
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