QUALIFYING 2 BRNO WSB YAMAHA
Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) missed out on his 43rd career Superpole win by a mere 0.106 seconds at the 5.403km Brno circuit today, with only his fellow Australian Troy Bayliss able to beat his time.
The fight for the new absolute track record was played out in warm and dry conditions and on qualifying tyres. Corser set a 1'58.451 to take what looked like an unbeatable time, only for Bayliss to fight back.
Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) worked hard in session with the team but could not find a set-up that allowed his proven talents at Brno to shine and he now starts the races on Sunday from the third row of the grid, 12th overall.
David Checa (Yamaha GMT94) came agonisingly close to joining the top 16 qualifiers in Superpole, but now starts the race from the 17th grid slot. Shinichi Nakatomi (Team YZF Yamaha) was only 0.004 seconds from Checa, in a positive final qualifying session. Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha GMT94) was 24th after losing some track time in practice today.
Troy Corser (2nd - 1'58.451 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)
"It was a shame not to win Superpole when we all put so much effort in but the main thing is that we have a front row start for the races. We have a good set-up for raceday and I think we can make our tyres go race distance at a good pace. We did a good race run this afternoon so it's all feeling very positive. We have made real improvements in the bike since our last test."
Noriyuki Haga (12th - 1'59.571 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)
"We have had a bit of a problem finding a good set up in some areas, but we have improved there, only to find a few smaller problems in another area. We have improved the feeling and tomorrow we can try another setting in a good direction, and we will see how things are after warm-up. We have already decided on a tyre for the race tomorrow, and I think we can find a better race pace than we can do in one single lap of qualifying, which is really important."
Massimo Meregalli (Team Manager, Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)
"Everything is working well for Troy and he is happy about the bike and tyres. He made a great Superpole lap, he was so close to adding to his record total. Tomorrow we will try something different on Nori's side. He has a good record here, so tomorrow I am sure we can find something better for him in warm-up anyway. In the end Nori is a racer on Sunday no matter what set-up he has so I am sure he can do well.
Shinichi Nakatomi (18th - 2:00.232 - Team YZF Yamaha)
"We changed the machine set up and made some progress but other teams also improved their times. The feeling ended up not so bad even if the grid position was not so good. The times are very close and after final qualifying we made good work to prepare for the race."
Circuit Length: 5403
Weather: Sunny
2008 WSB Czech Republic - Brno 19/07/2008 Superpole
1 Troy Bayliss Ducati AUS 1'58.345
2 Troy Corser Yamaha AUS 1'58.451
3 Michel Fabrizio Ducati ITA 1'58.853
4 Max Biaggi Ducati ITA 1'59.069
5 Ryuichi Kiyonari Honda JPN 1'59.318
6 Niccolo Canepa Ducati ITA 1'59.324
7 Fonsi Nieto Suzuki ESP 1'59.360
8 Jakub Smrz Ducati CZE 1'59.451
9 Max Neukirchner Suzuki GER 1'59.497
10 Yukio Kagayama Suzuki JPN 1'59.537
11 Ruben Xaus Ducati ESP 1'59.545
12 Noriyuki Haga Yamaha JPN 1'59.571
13 Carlos Checa Honda ESP 1'59.587
14 Lorenzo Lanzi Ducati ITA 1'59.639
15 Karl Muggeridge Honda AUS 2'0.306
Qualifying 2
1 Max Biaggi ITA 1'59.747 1'58.965
2 Jakub Smrz CZE 1'59.125 1'59.644
3 Troy Bayliss AUS 1'59.517 1'59.166
4 Max Neukirchner GER 2'0.179 1'59.250
5 Fonsi Nieto ESP 1'59.926 1'59.357
6 Troy Corser AUS 1'59.493 1'59.380
7 Michel Fabrizio ITA 2'0.024 1'59.482
8 Niccolo Canepa ITA 2'0.131 1'59.634
9 Carlos Checa ESP 2'0.424 1'59.648
10 Yukio Kagayama JPN 2'0.361 1'59.708
11 Ruben Xaus ESP 2'0.196 1'59.846
12 Lorenzo Lanzi ITA 1'59.850 2'0.155
13 Noriyuki Haga JPN 2'0.371 1'59.913
14 Karl Muggeridge AUS 2'1.350 1'59.944
15 Ayrton Badovini ITA 2'1.392 2'0.221
17 David Checa ESP 2'0.388 2'0.228
18 Shinichi Nakatomi JPN 2'0.552 2'0.232
25 Sebastien Gimbert FRA 2'1.170 2'1.059
- Yamaha, Amsterdam -
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