Yamaha Motor Italia stars Noriyuki Haga and Andrew Pitt will start tomorrow's Superbike World Championship races at EuroSpeedway Lausitz from the front row after setting the second and fourth fastest times in today's superpole session.
Starting his grid deciding lap tenth of the 16 riders, Haga stormed to a 1:38.079 - over half a second quicker than his previous best of the weekend, despite injuring his wrists in the pre-superpole practice. Haga suffered ligament damage in both wrists after the rear of his machine slid away from him. Nori-chan was able to save a potentially huge highside accident but wrenched his arms in doing so. Despite the discomfort, the Japanese Yamaha rider's time was good enough to hold the pole position until the final runner of the day, series leader Troy Bayliss (Ducati) went one tenth of a second faster and relegate the Yamaha man to second place on the grid for tomorrow's two 24-lap races.
After ending the combined qualifying in fifth, Pitt was also able to make a big improvement on his qualifying run. The Australian set a time of 1:38.291 to lie third, behind Haga and James Toseland (Honda) after his run. An anxious wait saw Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki), Alex Barros (Honda) and Troy Corser (Suzuki) all fail to go faster than the Yamaha, guaranteeing Yamaha Motor Italia two bikes on the front of the grid for tomorrow's races.
Despite producing stunning times on the soft qualifying rubber, the Yamaha Motor Italia riders spent the majority of the day working to find machine settings that will allow them to run consistently smooth lap times and keep tyre wear to a minimum on the twisting and highly abrasive EuroSpeedway circuit.
Yamaha Motor France's Norick Abe found himself on the superpole bubble, missing out on a place in the top 16 by just three tenths of a second. Team-mate Shinichi Nakatomi starts his first EuroSpeedway races from 25th position, while Belgian wild-card lines up for his first ever world superbike races on the fifth row after qualifying 20th. The FIM Superstock 1000 Cup champion, who won at Lausitz on his way to the title, is competing on the machine he normally races in the German IDM series.
Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia)"It's good to be on the front row, although I had to go straight to the Clinica Mobile after superpole due to my wrist problem. It happened when I was doing a long run in the free practice and I had a big slide. It happened twice and although I was able to save the highside I have hurt myself a little bit. Second place is quite surprising in the circumstances but I was able to ride very smooth and not make the injury worse. The doctors have made an X-ray and that shows nothing is broken. They gave me some treatment and have bandaged me up. Now we have to see how the race goes. I think it will be ok but 24 laps is a very long way!"
Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia) "I'm really happy to be on the front row and I know that our race set-up should be good. The track temperature is a bit lower this weekend than when we tested and as a result the rear tyres don't seem to last as long. I was able to do over 15 laps on one of the tyres and Nori did a lot of laps on the other choice and I think that we've got the bike working well for the race. I think everyone's going to be going pretty hard in the early laps and I was able to follow and pass a few riders in practice who seemed to be having more tyre wear than us."
Norick Abe (Yamaha Motor France) "It's coming better step by step this weekend and the good thing is that whatever we've done we've never taken a step back. I made a long run in the afternoon session where I was able to do consistent 1:40 laps. While that's not at the very top level I think that for now we can be happy with this. If I can continue this in the races then maybe it is possible to make top 10 at the finish."
Shinichi Nakatomi (Yamaha Motor France) "It is going better and better all the time but we did not have enough time to work through everything. I missed the private tests because I was then injured and the practices are too short. It is very difficult."
Massimo Meregalli (Team Coordinator - Yamaha Motor Italia) "Both riders first row is a good starting point and shows that the team has been working very well this weekend. I predict it will be a difficult race, because the correct tyre choice will make a big difference to the result of the race. We will be working very hard because we have the possibility for both riders to finish in the top three of the championship, so this is target for rest of the season."
Circuit Length: 4265
Temp: 20
Weather: Dry
Superpole: WSB Lausitzring 09/09/2006 1 Troy Bayliss Ducati AUS 1'37.923
2 Noriyuki Haga Yamaha JPN 1'38.079
3 James Toseland Honda GBR 1'38.254
4 Andrew Pitt Yamaha AUS 1'38.291
5 Lorenzo Lanzi Ducati ITA 1'38.479
6 Troy Corser Suzuki AUS 1'38.507
7 Alex Barros Honda BRA 1'38.613
8 Yukio Kagayama Suzuki JPN 1'38.734
9 Karl Muggeridge Honda AUS 1'38.749
10 Steve Martin Petronas AUS 1'39.065
11 Fonsi Nieto Kawasaki ESP 1'39.183
12 Regis Laconi Kawasaki FRA 1'39.208
13 Max Neukirchner Suzuki GER 1'39.322
14 Chris Walker Kawasaki GBR 1'39.342
15 Ruben Xaus Ducati ESP 1'39.595
Qualifying 2:1 Ruben Xaus Ducati ESP 1'40.041
2 Regis Laconi Kawasaki FRA 1'40.149
3 Norick Abe Yamaha JPN 1'40.204
4 Chris Walker Kawasaki GBR 1'40.236
5 Ivan Clementi Ducati ITA 1'40.271
6 Marco Borciani Ducati ITA 1'40.330
7 Didier Van Keymeulen Yamaha BEL 1'40.373
8 Craig Jones Petronas GBR 1'40.433
9 Stefan Nebel Kawasaki GER 1'40.521
10 Vittorio Iannuzzo Suzuki ITA 1'40.600
11 Pierfrancesco Chili Honda ITA 1'40.728
12 Shinichi Nakatomi Yamaha JPN 1'40.804
13 Kurtis Roberts Ducati USA 1'40.831
14 Roberto Rolfo Ducati ITA 1'41.228
15 Max Neukirchner Suzuki GER 1'41.334
22 Andrew Pitt Yamaha AUS 1'38.871
24 Noriyuki Haga Yamaha JPN 1'38.924
Related Linkswww.yamaha-racing.com
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