Honda's Pere Riba set the pace with the fastest time in Friday's opening qualifying session for round one of the World Supersport championship at Valencia in Spain.
The Spanish rider led a Ten Kate Honda team 1-2 as his French team-mate Fabien Foret was second quickest in a one-hour session which ended with a number of crashes.
Third quickest was new Suzuki signing, Australian Karl Muggeridge -
"I feel we've made a good start to the weekend and a really good start to the championship. Third is not bad on the opening day here at Valencia, but I feel very positive because we also found a really good base set-up. That's the kind of thing we can carry forward and work on. We particularly made a lot of progress this morning and all we'll be doing tomorrow is just some fine-tuning of Suzuki The Suzuki feels very agile, so when you make small changes it affects the bike a lot. It's one of the things we learnt during the pre-season tests, but that's not a bad thing at all. I had a little suspension problem but
apart from that there were no dramas at all really. Now that the season has started in earnest, I'm really motivated to do
well. This is a very, very tough series and because the bikes are so close, so many different riders can win. I'm fortunate because I feel I've got the best team in the paddock behind me, so I'll be doing my best to with the title for them and me of
course!"
While the provisional front row for Sunday's race is completed by Italian Yamaha Piergiorgio Bontempi.
Christophe Cogan on a Yamaha was fifth fastest with veteran Suzuki rider and former champion Fabrizio Pirovano sixth. Sweden¹s Christer Lindholm recorded the seventh fastest time as the top eight were covered by less than one second. Vittoriano Guareschi - fastest in Friday morning's warm-up and returning to supersport after two years in superbike - was eighth.
Belgian Werner Daemen in ninth and Ducati rider Dean Thomas complete the top 10. Castrol Honda's Chris Vermeulen set the 18th fastest time while BKM Honda¹s Kevin Curtain and Ivan Goi were 21st and 31st respectively. The Alpha Technik Honda pairing of Markus Barth and stand-in rider Alex Gobert were 25th and 33rd. Alex was 29th in the morning session but a gust of wind picked him up during the qualifying session which made him go down the road. So qualifying was done on the spare bike which still needed setting up but Alex is confident of improving tomorrow.
| 1 |
P. Riba |
Honda |
1m39.087 |
|
| 2 |
F. Foret |
Honda |
1m39.616 |
0.529 |
| 3 |
K. Muggeridge |
Suzuki |
1m39.655 |
0.568 |
| 4 |
P. Bontempi |
Yamaha |
1m39.808 |
0.721 |
| 5 |
C. Cogan |
Yamaha |
1m39.883 |
0.796 |
| 6 |
F. Pirovano |
Suzuki |
1m39.994 |
0.907 |
| 7 |
C. Lindholm |
Yamaha |
1m40.037 |
0.950 |
| 8 |
V. Guareschi |
Ducati |
1m40.042 |
0.955 |
| 9 |
W. Daemen |
Yamaha |
1m40.104 |
1.017 |
| 10 |
D. Thomas |
Ducati |
1m40.224 |
1.137 |
| 11 |
P. Casoli |
Yamaha |
1m40.279 |
1.192 |
| 12 |
K. Fujiwara |
Suzuki |
1m40.313 |
1.226 |
| 13 |
C. Kellner |
Yamaha |
1m40.322 |
1.235 |
| 14 |
J. Hanson |
Yamaha |
1m40.417 |
1.330 |
| 15 |
J. Teuchert |
Yamaha |
1m40.441 |
1.354 |
| 16 |
I. MacPherson |
Kawasaki |
1m40.483 |
1.396 |
| 17 |
A. Carlacci |
Ducati |
1m40.503 |
1.416 |
| 18 |
C. Vermeulen |
Honda |
1m40.596 |
1.509 |
| 19 |
A. Pitt |
Kawasaki |
1m40.607 |
1.520 |
| 20 |
V. Iannuzzo |
Suzuki |
1m40.828 |
1.741 |
| 21 |
K. Curtain |
Honda |
1m40.007 |
1.920 |
| 22 |
A. Escobar |
Yamaha |
1m41.152 |
2.065 |
| 23 |
J. Whitham |
Yamaha |
1m41.158 |
2.071 |
| 24 |
I. Clementi |
Yamaha |
1m41.284 |
2.197 |
| 25 |
M. Barth |
Honda |
1m41.313 |
2.226 |
| 26 |
S. Le
Grelle |
Honda |
1m41.577 |
2.490 |
| 27 |
S. Cruciani |
Yamaha |
1m41.578 |
2.491 |
| 28 |
A. Hervas |
Yamaha |
1m41.626 |
2.539 |
| 29 |
C. Migliorati |
Ducati |
1m41.735 |
2.648 |
| 30 |
I. Mengozzi |
Ducati |
1m41.186 |
3.099 |
| 31 |
I. Goi |
Honda |
1m42.352 |
3.265 |
| 32 |
E. Ullastres |
Yamaha |
1m43.024 |
3.937 |
| 33 |
A. Gobert |
Honda |
1m43.728 |
4.641 |
| 34 |
M. Campana |
Ducati |
1m46.138 |
7.051 |
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