Cal Crutchlow snatches tenth pole in Magny Cours

The Yamaha World Supersport team dug deep after yesterday's difficult free practice session to today deliver Crutchlow a much improved set up on his R6. Crutchlow repaid their efforts, staying top four for the duration of the session before switching to fresh rubber at the end to stamp his mark on the heat, laying down an incredible 1'40.9, the only rider to break below the 1.41 second mark. As a result Crutchlow will take his tenth pole position start of the season, whilst championship rival Laverty sits at the other end of the front row in fourth.

Team mate Fabien Foret was repeating the consistent fast form from yesterday, spending nearly the entire qualifying session inside the top five, only bumping down to sixth as the session came to a close. Foret will start from the second row of the grid, but with the pace showed so far this weekend should be in a good position to challenge for the podium.

Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha World Supersport Team, (1st, 1'40.980)
"Today was a lot better than yesterday, having been way down we've worked hard and performed really well. It's going to be really close in the race, there's going to be a lot of guys up there in the top tenth of a second so I'm really looking forward to it to see what we can do."


Fabien Foret, Yamaha World Supersport Team, (6th, 1'41.943)
"I'm really happy with the bike and the way the weekend has been going s far. For tomorrow the race pace is very good so I'm pretty confident. I'm a little frustrated, I know I need to switch my brain off to get a flying lap for qualifying, which is why I'm second row at the moment, I think I deserve something better. I expect to do a good race tomorrow and fight for the podium or even better."


Wilco Zeelenberg, Yamaha World Supersport Team Manager
"A much better session today, it's difficult to judge but yesterday wasn't a good start for the weekend and we all realized that so we had to push hard to be in front again, the crash really slowed us down. I don't think we've found the best setting yet but we've improved a lot from this morning and tried some things this afternoon as well. With a fresh tyre Cal was impressively fast but we still need to look into the data and see what we can do for tomorrow.

We need to finish in front of Eugene and the rest will follow. Fabien has had a really good weekend, he's very happy with the bike. He's a really good racer on a Sunday but after his crash he still struggles a bit with qualifying, he finds it hard to switch off for a lap to go faster and take extra risk. I have the feeling he can do a really good race tomorrow, he's consistently fast with solid race pace. I think he will be fighting for the podium for sure."


 
Circuit Length: 4411
Lap Record: 1'44.071 (Michel Fabrizio, 01/01/2005)
Fastest Lap Ever: 1'40.980 (Cal Crutchlow, 04/10/2009)
Last Years Winner: Andrew Pitt 
 
2009 WSS France - Magny-Cours 03/10/2009 Qualifying 1
1 Cal Crutchlow Yamaha GBR 1'40.980
2 Joan Lascorz Kawasaki ESP 1'41.146
3 Kenan Sofuoglu Honda TUR 1'41.253
4 Eugene Laverty Honda GBR 1'41.562
5 Michele Pirro Yamaha ITA 1'41.720
6 Fabien Foret Yamaha FRA 1'41.943
7 Katsuaki Fujiwara Kawasaki JPN 1'41.956
8 Mark Aitchison Honda AUS 1'42.136
9 Andrew Pitt Honda AUS 1'42.176
10 Garry McCoy Triumph AUS 1'42.265
11 Matthieu Lagrive Honda FRA 1'42.571
12 Barry Veneman Honda NED 1'42.578
13 Miguel Praia Honda POR 1'42.580
14 Massimo Roccoli Honda ITA 1'42.648
15 Chaz Davies Triumph GBR 1'42.767
20 Dan Linfoot Yamaha GBR 1'44.025
22 Doni Tata Pradita Yamaha IDN 1'44.463
28 Yannick Guerra Yamaha ESP 1'45.567
29 Fabrice Auger Yamaha FRA 1'46.381



- Yamaha Racing -