Troy Bayliss continues to
make the headlines for the Ducati Xerox Team on his return to World
Superbikes. The Australian former world champion set a time of 1m33.387s in
glorious conditions at the spectacular Phillip Island track to take the
provisional pole today. Ducati Xerox team-mate Lorenzo Lanzi was fifth
quickest in the cooler morning free practice session, but was outside the
top 16 in qualifying. Brazil's Alex Barros took advantage of a Bayliss
slipstream to record second-quickest time while former Ducati Xerox rider
James Toseland (Honda) and Troy Corser (Suzuki) make up the provisional
front row.
"Things went well this morning for the first exit, and I expected to
go quite a bit faster in the second session but actually in the end the
track was quite hot and a bit slower and I only bettered the time by a tenth
of a second" said Troy. "I stayed out and did ten laps on the race tyre and
my second-last lap was only two-tenths off my best. So it all went quite
well but took a little while to get going, then in the end it all came
together. We'll see how tomorrow goes, we've got second qualifying first
thing in the morning, when it'll be cooler and I think it's going to be
better. I didn't know Alex was behind me, which was when he did his time,
but I know he's going to be coming in the future anyway, that's no problem.
All I know is that I was consistent on my race tyre and that's the main
thing at the moment. At the end of the session the guys thought I was only
going to do 3 or 4 laps to see how the bike was, but it was feeling really
good so I ended up doing 10 and ran out of petrol on the way into Honda
corner but luckily I could roll all the way back to the pits!"
"We started off with a rear tyre that was too soft and this led us
astray for a bit, and as we only have a limited number of tyres available,
we couldn't put on another set to do a quick time" declared Lorenzo. "This
morning I went well so I'm pretty relaxed about everything. For tomorrow we
had already decided to have the extra tyre that we didn't use today. For
sure tomorrow the weather will be fine and the times will come down because
it won't be as hot in the morning session. It's a pity we made the wrong
tactics because it meant that we went in the wrong direction immediately at
the start of the session".
James Toseland - SBK Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider (3rd position - 1'33.851);
"We stuck a new tyre in the bike near the end and still did a pretty decent time. This tyre was spinning towards the end a lot more than the others so I think if we had the same tyre in the rear as we had earlier we could have challenged even more. The power of the Honda is awesome now so we need to try and get as much grip as we can. It's no good to have this power and just get it spinning. But the bike is good, and I'm happy that I'm riding consistently."
Alex Barros: "I only had a few days for testing and we had to work hard
on the settings of the Klaffi Honda Fireblade. Meanwhile I also got a
good grip on the bike. And we are on the best way to reach our target.
Conditions are nearly perfect now and I hope to improve my lap time
tomorrow."
Times;
- 1. Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) 1m33.387s
- 2. Barros (Honda) 1m33.790s
- 3. Toseland (Honda) 1m33.851s
- 4. Corser (Suzuki) 1m33.868s
- 5. Kagayama (Suzuki) 1m34.461s
- 6. Martin (Petronas) 1m34.501s
- 7. Haga (Yamaha) 1m34.577s
- 8. Walker (Kawasaki) 1m34.589s
- 9. Chili (Honda) 1m34.601s
- 10. Nieto (Kawasaki) 1m34.618s
