Honda's Pere Riba set the
fastest time in Friday afternoon's opening qualifying session for the 11th
and final round of the World Supersport championship at the Imola circuit
in Italy.
Riba, sixth in the championship standings, dominated the morning's free
practice and followed up with the fastest lap around the 3.04-mile circuit
near Bologna in the first of two official qualifying sessions.
Championship leader Paolo Casoli was second fastest with fellow Italian
Vittoriano Guareschi third on a Ducati. Riba's Ten Kate Honda team-mate
Fabien Foret completes the provisional front row of the grid for Sunday's
21-lap race.
Piergiorgio Bontempi heads the second row after the Italian Yamaha rider
took fifth while Katsuaki Fujiwara was sixth fastest with James Whitham
seventh and Christian Kellner eighth to complete the provisional second
row.
Castrol Honda's Chris Vermeulen - second fastest in the morning's free
practice session before a crash - ended the opening day 16th, suffering
from the after effects of the crash, he said: "I'm OK but I really need
tonight to get over the crash, I'll be fine for tomorrow's qualifying."
Alpha Technik's Adam Fergusson was 20th with his team-mate Steve Plater
27th. The BKM Honda pairing of Kevin Curtain and Cristiano Migliorati
ended the day 24th and 26th respectively.
Muggas comments: “I really like this track
and I get around pretty good the first three quarters of it, I just need
to dial in the last part tomorrow and it should be fine. The bike feels
quite good, we will do some slight gearbox changes for tomorrow and we
also got a different tyre to try out. 11th is not so bad for Friday’s
qualifying session, specially if you have look at the ideal time where I’m
on fifth position. I’m confident and will work hard to get on that front
row for Sunday’s last race of this season”.
Andrew Pitt: "I tried two of the new gearboxes this morning (in practice)
and the other in qualifying. We can run taller gearing in fourth, fifth,
and sixth, which makes us quicker through the fast turns. There's also
less gear changes and we're not on the rev-limiter as much. We've also
changed the external gearing so it's been a busy day, but a good one,
because we're improving the bike. Qualifying was disappointing. I wasn't
happy with 10th because we had been up around the top five for most of the
session. I went out with Iain (Kawasaki team-mate Iain MacPherson) near
the end with a 'soft' (qualifying) tyre and we had hoped to do some
slipstreaming to move up the list. Unfortunately Iain had a 'moment' on
our best lap and we lost momentum. That's what happens sometimes. I'm
confident of doing better lap times tomorrow because we're quicker than
our qualifying position looks. We've decided to run with the front
suspension harder tomorrow, compared to the set-up we had at Assen
(previous championship round in the Netherlands on September 9). I've done
some 'race runs' on (Dunlop) tyres and I've narrowed it down to a choice
of two."
- Pere Riba, Spain (Honda) 1m54.135s,
- Paolo Casoli, Italy (Yamaha) 1m
54.436s,
- Vittoriano Guareschi, Italy (Ducati)
1m 54.516s,
- Fabien Foret, France (Honda) 1m
54.624s,
- Piergiorgio Bontempi, Italy (Yamaha)
1m 54.683s,
- Katsuaki Fujiwara, Japan (Suzuki) 1m
54.813s,
- James Whitham, GB (Yamaha) 1m 54.857s,
- Christian Kellner, Germany (Yamaha) 1m
54.882s,
- Vittorio Iannuzzo, Italy (Suzuki)
1m54.957s,
- Andrew Pitt, Australia (Kawasaki) 1m
54.968s,
- Karl Muggeridge,
Australia (Suzuki) 1m55.010s,
- Iain MacPherson, GB
(Kawasaki) 1m55.019s,
- Antonio Carlacci
(Ducati) 1m55.263s,
- Stefano Cruciani
(Yamaha) 1m55.370s,
- Christer Lindholm
(Yamaha) 1m55.540s,
- Chris Vermeulen
(Honda) 1m55.573s,
- Jorg Teuchert
(Yamaha) 1m55.609s,
- Dean Thomas
(Ducati) 1m55.628s,
- Shannon Johnson
(Honda) 1m55.864s,
- Adam Fergusson
(Honda) 1m56.229s,
- Fabrizio Pirovano
(Suzuki) 1m56.253s,
- Camillo Mariottini
(Yamaha) 1m56.335s,
- Werner Daemen
(Yamaha) 1m56.494s,
- Kevin Curtain
(Honda) 1m56.664s,
- Ivan Clementi
(Yamaha) 1m56.869s,
- Cristiano
Migliorati (Honda) 1m56.984s,
- Steve Plater
(Honda) 1m57.064s,
- Davide Bulega
(Yamaha) 1m57.459s,
- Jan Hanson (Yamaha)
1m57.469s,
- Oriol Fernandez
(Yamaha) 1m57.792s,
- Augustin Escobar
(Yamaha) 1m57.901s,
- Rob Frost (Yamaha)
1m58.473s,
- Franco Brugnara
(Yamaha) 1m59.080s,
- Kyro Verstraeten
(Honda) 2m00.026s,
- Markus Barth
(Ducati) 2m01.167s
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