Careful start for Crutchlow and Foret

Following the un-scheduled closure of the track for further cleaning it was the Supersport riders who first took to the circuit to lay down some rubber in their delayed free practice session at Imola today.

With 35 minutes of the practice session gone, Crutchlow ventured out onto the track and immediately took second place on the standings, two tenths of a second off leader Kenan Sofuoglu. With seven minutes remaining he had increased this to over two seconds as the grip increased on track. He ended the session a clear half second ahead of the rest of the field.

Team mate Fabien Foret had a slower start to the day, again like Crutchlow waiting until mid way through the session before taking to the track. Foret was careful not push too hard in the difficult conditions, and was happy to confirm some settings in advance of a faster session tomorrow.

Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha World Supersport Team (1st, 1'52.751)
"I thought we made the best of a bad day today, with the sessions being stopped and delayed. The track temperature wasn't great and the grip was really bad considering. It was so unpredictable making it very difficult to judge my speed round the track. We'll just have to keep on doing what we're doing and see what tomorrow brings."

Fabien Foret, Yamaha World Superbike Team (13th, 1'57.449)
"What can I say, not the best conditions for us to make any changes to the bike after our test. I took it easy but even if I had been going faster I don't think I would have made any changes to the bike before tomorrow. We know our base setting so hopefully when the track is more normal tomorrow we can fine tune it and get ready for Sunday."

Wilco Zeelenberg, Yamaha World Supersport Team Manager
"We waited a long time to be able to get out on track to get some rubber down. We've been working today to be as fast as possible but also to keep some safety for the riders which is why we waited so long to come out in the session. None of the riders have enjoyed riding on the circuit today.

Although Cal was fastest he wasn't enjoying himself, and Fabien was the same. They had very little feeling, the tyres felt very un-precise on the surface, a completely different feeling to when we had our test here. I don't think it should be our job to clean the track but it seems we were basically track cleaners today."
 
Circuit Length: 4959
Lap Record: 1'53.388 (Sebastien Charpentier, 01/01/2006)
Fastest Lap Ever: 1'52.245 (Sebastien Charpentier, 01/10/2006)
 
 
2009 WSS Italy - Imola 25/09/2009

Free Practice
1 Cal Crutchlow Yamaha GBR 1'52.751
2 Kenan Sofuoglu Honda TUR 1'53.234
3 Joan Lascorz Kawasaki ESP 1'54.897
4 Eugene Laverty Honda GBR 1'55.270
5 Michele Pirro Yamaha ITA 1'55.354
6 Mark Aitchison Honda AUS 1'55.499
7 Massimo Roccoli Honda ITA 1'55.564
8 Andrew Pitt Honda AUS 1'56.198
9 Anthony West Honda AUS 1'56.443
10 Chaz Davies Triumph GBR 1'56.537
11 Danilo Dell'omo Honda ITA 1'56.737
12 Katsuaki Fujiwara Kawasaki JPN 1'57.438
13 Fabien Foret Yamaha FRA 1'57.449
14 Sam Lowes Honda GBR 1'57.644
15 Miguel Praia Honda POR 1'57.662
23 Emanuele Russo Yamaha ITA 1'59.837
28 Doni Tata Pradita Yamaha IDN 2'01.509


- Yamaha Racing -