World SuperSport 2001 - Round 6 - Final Qualifying / Grid
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Ten Kate Honda team rider Fabien Foret will start from pole position in Sunday's sixth round of the World Supersport championship at the Lausitzring in Germany after setting the fastest lap in Saturday afternoon's final qualifying session. The Frenchman got the better of team-mate Pere Riba with four minutes to go in the one-hour session as the new Honda CBR600F Sport machines fill all four places on the front row of the grid for Sunday's 23-lap race. Kevin Curtain, riding for the BKM Honda team, edged out fellow Australian Adam Fergusson for third place. Curtain was looking to challenge for pole position when he crashed with three minutes to go, escaping injury. Suzuki's Karl Muggeridge leads the second row from fifth place and will have defending world champion Jorg Teuchert sat alongside him. “After this morning free practice the bike was handling very well and the engine was performing really well", commented Muggeridge. "My laps by laps were excellent, I was looking forward to the afternoon qualifying session but it wasn’t to be. This afternoon we had gear-box problems so the first bike had to be side lined after 20 minutes, so I had to move to my second one after we changed suspension, but then on that bike the fuel injection wasn’t working that well. But I guess we can be happy, tomorrow we will have all these problems solved and the bike will be really good for the race and 5th is better than 26th so I can’t complain. We have good tyres for the race and I’m confident for tomorrow that we can do it." Muggeridge's team-mate Katsuaki Fujiwara will start from seventh with Piergiorgio Bontempi eighth. Australian Andrew Pitt ended the day 11th quickest - "We've qualified better this weekend than at the last couple of races. At the same time I'm a little disappointed because we're only a tenth (of a second) behind (Piergiorgio) Bontempi and he's on the second row – that's how close it is! I did my best time on race tyres right at the end of today's session. I tried a qualifying tyre, but I didn't get the grip I needed. My crash yesterday happened flat-out in sixth gear at the end of the straight. I slid down the middle of the track and onto the grass, but luckily I didn't hit anything. We tested here before the last race at Donington (Park), but they've changed the track since then by putting in some plastic ripple strips coming out of the last corner. Before you used to drift out wide to the wall, so the changes have made it more narrow. I think we're in good shape for the race. The Kawasaki is good under brakes, which is going to be important here because the best passing places are under brakes at the end of the straights. It's a physical track and a few guys could fade as the race goes on. There are several off-camber turns where you're braking on the side of the tyre so you've got to be careful of it can catch you out." BKM Honda's Cristiano Migliorati qualified in 14th place with Alpha Technik Honda's Markus Barth 28th. Castrol Honda's Chris Vermeulen finished in 27th place, he said:
"I was half a second faster in free practice this morning with the same set-up and tyres, we don't know what's changed to make me slower. We've a couple of changes to make for the morning warm-up tomorrow so I'm hoping to start the race confident of a strong
finish." |