QUALIFYING 1 REPORT 05/09/2008
Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) and Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) negotiated the first day of practice at a soaking wet Donington Park largely to evaluate their wet weather settings, with varying degrees of success.
Corser was 12th in the afternoon official session having survived two crashes in the morning with no more than bumps and bruises, while Haga was 24th fastest, not pushing too hard on a generally grey and miserable first day of qualifying.
The team evaluated their new Öhlins electronic suspension for the first time in race conditions, but with Corser having limited early session track time, they started work in earnest after completing the timed session in the afternoon.
Haga made early evaluations of wet tyres, should raceday prove to be wet, and both riders reported that the new Donington track surface took some time to shed water away, making for frequent aquaplaning in some areas of shallow standing water.
David Checa (Yamaha GMT94) was second fastest Yamaha rider in the wet, in 7th place, with Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha GMT94) 26th and Shinichi Nakatomi (Team YZF Yamaha) 27th.
Noriyuki Haga (24th - 1'48.841 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)
"The softest front tyre is OK in the wet and gives me good grip but I worked between different tyres on the rear rear, and I think I've found the right one for these conditions. In the afternoon session, from the middle onwards, I had an electrical problem and it was impossible to push hard on that bike to set a good lap time. But it is no problem, because in the very last part of the session I found a good feeling with the set-up and I am sure we can go faster in the wet tomorrow. There are some areas of standing water and some rivers of water going across the track. There is also too much aquaplaning on the straights."
Troy Corser (12th - 1'46.803 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)
"The conditions are very strange because there is a lot of water laying around on the track, the new asphalt seems to not let the water run away; it just sits there until we go through it. Then you can see the water filling in the clear line the tyre has cut through the water. So the standing water is not getting dispersed by the bikes going round. It feels easy to aquaplane and the rear is spinning right down the straights.
This morning I had absolutely no feeling from the bike early on and I crashed twice, even though I was riding a bit too slow, I felt. We made some changes to the chassis set-up in the afternoon and that gave me a bit more feel as time went on. So it's not to bad and we have some good data to look at now. The electronic suspension we have tried, but we have to look at the data and find out where the bumps are, to be able to set it up properly. With the data we have now we should be able to start with it again tomorrow."
Massimo Meregalli (Team Manager, Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)
"The weather has made things difficult from the start for everyone and the track surface itself seems to hold a lot of water compared to before. We have started to work on our electronic suspension but not in ideal conditions to compare it to the regular units. We need to see how the weather conditions change over the weekend before we decide on any kind of race set-up, but it looks like it will probably be wet."
Circuit Length: 4023
2008 WSB Europe - Donington Park 05/09/2008 Qualifying 1
1 Troy Bayliss Ducati AUS 1'44.377
2 Ryuichi Kiyonari Honda JPN 1'44.528
3 Cal Crutchlow Honda GBR 1'44.627
4 Tom Sykes Suzuki GBR 1'44.682
5 Leon Haslam Honda GBR 1'44.813
6 Max Biaggi Ducati ITA 1'45.384
7 Ruben Xaus Ducati ESP 1'45.725
8 Carlos Checa Honda ESP 1'45.936
9 Gregorio Lavilla Honda ESP 1'46.044
10 James Ellison Honda GBR 1'46.392
11 Chris Walker Honda GBR 1'46.553
12 Troy Corser Yamaha AUS 1'46.803
13 Kenan Sofuoglu Honda TUR 1'46.912
14 Jakub Smrz Ducati CZE 1'46.924
15 Michel Fabrizio Ducati ITA 1'47.114
17 David Checa Yamaha ESP 1'47.624
24 Noriyuki Haga Yamaha JPN 1'48.841
26 Sebastien Gimbert Yamaha FRA 1'50.349
27 Shinichi Nakatomi Yamaha JPN 1'50.454
- Yamaha -
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