World SuperSport - Round 5 - Donington - Friday Qualifying
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Vittoriano Guareschi set the fastest time in Friday's opening qualifying session for Sunday's fifth round of the World Supersport championship at Donington Park, GB. The Italian Ducati rider edged out Karl Muggeridge in the last minute of the one-hour session to head the provisional grid for Sunday's 23-lap race at the 2.5-mile circuit near Derby. Muggas knows the Leicestershire track quite well from his two years experience in the British Championship looks forward to tomorrow and is hopping to get back on pole like in last years event. His chances are looking good; he was the only rider that lapped the track four times in the 1’36s and only Guareschi was also able to achieved a 36 lap-time more than once. Muggas comments: “In the morning free practice, I was going around the track to get a good feel for the bike and sorting out a basic set-up for this afternoon, which went reasonably well. We made some really good improvements on suspension but we still have a bit of work to do tomorrow. We spent 80% of this qualifying session preparing the bike and I think we achieved a good setting. In the last 15 minutes we’ve tried out some softer Dunlop’s which worked well, but we had a bit a confusion on the last lap, as I didn’t noticed that I was followed by Guareschi and so lost my provisional pole to him. But I’m happy about today’s progress and will work on getting that pole back tomorrow.” Suzuki-mounted Muggeridge fought it out with Guareschi in the closing stages of the session while former Donington Park race winner and series leader Paolo Casoli took third as the top 10 were separated by just one second. On a day when Chris Vermeulen wanted to shine, the young Australian was forced to settle with the 26th fastest time in the opening qualifying session for Sunday’s fifth round of the World Supersport championship at Donington Park, GB. Vermeulen suffered with engine trouble early in the session before a front tyre problem hampered his chances of a better lap time. ”The new engine we have here wasn’t working properly but I’m sure it just needs a little bit of a tweak,” said the 18-year-old Australian. “I ran our standard engine for the remainder of the session and we then tried to set up that machine for here.” He added: “We’ve got a completely new motor to try on Saturday morning so I’m hopeful that I’ll be a bit nearer the front. It’s only Friday but I came here hoping for a good result and to get that I really need to qualify
well.” |