Troy Bayliss and Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati Xerox Team) were both front-runners during the opening qualifying session for the Australian Round of the World Superbike Championship, taking place at Phillip Island this weekend. Bayliss ended the day second quickest behind provisional poleman James Toseland (Honda), while team-mate Lorenzo Lanzi was third quickest for much of the one-hour qualifying session before being edged down a spot in the last couple of minutes.
"I'm pretty happy with the way things went today because the track was quite hot this afternoon" declared Troy. "We did a full race simulation with one tyre and I'm quite pleased with that but tomorrow we're going to do another one to try a different solution. But I'm very satisfied with the way things are looking, we're going much better than we were last weekend at the opening race and I'm feeling a lot more confident on the bike. We'll just have to move on from here tomorrow morning."
Lorenzo Lanzi, who scored his first podium of the year with third place in Qatar a few days ago, was also on good form. Despite a high-speed crash at turn 2 in the morning's free practice session, the 25 year-old Italian was pleased with his overnight fourth place.
"It was a pity about the last few minutes when I lost third place but fourth place is OK" commented Lorenzo. "Today we did a long-run, 17/18 laps, which went well. Now we'll have to see tomorrow when we have a few more things to try, in particular with the rear suspension so I'm feeling confident I can improve. I had a small crash this morning in the free practice session but everything is OK, I didn't do myself any harm. I immediately found the right feeling again with the front and managed to set some good times."
Times: 1. Toseland (Honda) 1m32.040s;
2. Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) 1m32.641s;
3. Nieto (Kawasaki) 1m32.769s;
4. Lanzi (Ducati Xerox) 1m32.774s;
5. Corser (Yamaha) 1m32.900s;
6. Biaggi (Suzuki) 1m32.998s;
7. Kagayama (Suzuki) 1m33.154s;
8. Haga (Yamaha) 1m33.244s;
9. Xaus (Ducati) 1m33.315s;
10. Neukirchner (Suzuki) 1m33.523s; etc.
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