Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team rider Troy Corser made a great start to his latest race weekend by posting the second best time of the first official qualifying session at the new SBK venue of Miller Motorsports Park. Corser was one of three WSB riders who went under the previous AMA Superbike lap record, with Troy taking his Yamaha YZF-R1 to a 1'49.636 best.
Feeling his way around the 4.905km circuit on his first visit, Noriyuki Haga was still less than a second from provisional pole with a best lap of 1'50.349. Haga was trying out used tyres to make good progress with his overall raceday set-up plan.
Fastest rider of all was Troy Bayliss, with Carlos Checa third and Jakub Smrz fourth. The Miller circuit is a high altitude venue, and thus the absolute top end of performance suffers in the thin air. Nonetheless, each Yamaha Motor Italia rider was only a fraction from setting a best top speed of 300kmph.
Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha GMT94) enjoyed his first day at the new venue, and has every confidence of improving his opening day 18th place ranking to make it into the top 16 for Superpole on Saturday afternoon.
Team YZF Yamaha rider Shinichi Nakatomi went 20th fastest, with Yamaha GMT94 rider David Checa making his return from injury to go 26th, struggling to overcome the tenderness and lack of power in his right leg.
Troy Corser (2nd - 1'49.636 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)"Not bad for the first day and the layout of the track is quite easy to learn; not too technical. Just the Attitude chicane over the back is the critical one, where you can make or lose some time. The track is very smooth and only has a few bumps. Finding braking markers is the hardest thing so far because there are no real indicators, just bumps or black marks. Some corners even go downhill once you start braking. Because of the altitude we are racing at this weekend the engine feels a bit flat but we knew that would be the case here. The gearing feels pretty perfect but we are really only using second and third gear in the corners."
Noriyuki Haga (10th - 1'50.349 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team"So far so good and I have just been finding suspension settings today. We're not so far away even now. We will try some more settings tomorrow. It's a nice track, but strange. Some laps I didn't push but the lap time is good. Then I pushed and the lap time worse. Then I pushed and the lap time was the same. So we just need to find out why that is. There is a lot of grip from the track and the feeling is good with the bike."
Massimo Meregalli (Team Manager, Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)"Troy is happy about everything so far, tyres as well. In fact both riders have already found some good tyre solutions. Noriyuki is still working on bike set-up and checking data but both riders are happy with both the new track and our progress. The engines lose some power here of course, because this track is at altitude, but that's the same for everyone."
Christophe Guyot (Team Manager Yamaha GMT94 Team)"I am very happy with Sebastien today and we should also be not too bad tomorrow. I am sure he can be in Superpole. With David it is difficult to say because he is still hurting. From Misano he will be 100%."
Circuit Length: 4905
Qualifying 1 - WSB United States - Salt Lake City:1. Troy Bayliss - Ducati - AUS 1'49.394
2. Troy Corser - Yamaha - AUS 1'49.6363. Carlos Checa - Honda - ESP 1'49.732
4. Jakub Smrz - Ducati - CZE 1'49.758
5. Michel Fabrizio - Ducati - ITA 1'49.872
6. Fonsi Nieto - Suzuki - ESP 1'49.895
7. Yukio Kagayama - Suzuki - JPN 1'50.135
8. Ruben Xaus - Ducati - ESP 1'50.230
9. Ayrton Badovini - Kawasaki - ITA 1'50.269
10. Noriyuki Haga - Yamaha - JPN 1'50.34911. Shuhei Aoyama - Honda - JPN 1'50.413
12. Makoto Tamada - Kawasaki - JPN 1'50.439
13. Karl Muggeridge - Honda - AUS 1'50.481
14. Regis Laconi - Kawasaki - FRA 1'50.618
15. Max Neukirchner - Suzuki - GER 1'50.929
18. Sebastien Gimbert - Yamaha - FRA 1'51.318
20. Shinichi Nakatomi - Yamaha - JPN 1'51.38626. David Checa - Yamaha - ESP 1'52.490
