2002 World SuperBike Championship - Round 11 - Oschersleben - Qualifying 1

Troy Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada) and Honda rival Colin Edwards continued their season-long battle in the first qualifying session today for Round 11 of the World Superbike Championship at Oschersleben, Germany. The two riders were the only ones to dip below the 1m27s mark and Troy's time of 1'26.984 was just three-tenths of a second slower than the Texan, who set a new best lap around the 3.667 km circuit. Ducati Infostrada team-mate Ruben Xaus, a winner here last year, was also impressive, the Spanish rider slotting into fourth behind HM Plant Ducati's Neil Hodgson, with a time of 1'27.698, while Ducati L&M's Ben Bostrom also moved up to within striking position of the leading group with fifth quickest time of 1'27.736.

Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada) set his quick time at the end of the session as he sliced a full second off to move closer to pole-sitter Edwards. "Everything is going OK, we have done a lot better than what we did here last year at the moment" declared Troy. "We're still missing a little bit to get closer to Colin, but we'll just work on the bike and hope we can improve tomorrow. There's not much more to come here, I'd like to get a little closer but I can't see us going any faster than that tomorrow so now I just want to improve on my race tyre. We've got a couple of little things to try out and then I'll be happy. I feel a bit rusty too, it's been a long month off the bike".

Xaus (Ducati Infostrada) lost time trying out the set-up from last year, when he won race 2, but then changed to this year's configuration to record fourth quickest time. "The session was OK" commented Ruben, "but we lost some time with the front tyre because I tested the one from last year, which was not working how I wanted it to. We then went back to this year's tyre in the front and tested that solution with a good rear I found, so tomorrow I hope to have a good set-up for the race tyre. It is important to do good laps with the race tyres because it's a long, difficult and physical race and setting a good time on race tyres is more important than qualifying".

Bostrom (Ducati L&M) took some time to get settled in but then pulled out a quick lap right at the end of the session to finish provisional fifth. "I definitely feel better than this morning now that I've got the bike dialled in" said Ben. "Oschersleben is a fun little circuit and I plan to just push hard and put in the best result I can. I miss that feeling of racing up front so that's my target for this weekend. I think we have a lot more work to do because we are a bit off on race tyre time so we need mostly to work on the bike until we are up front. The hardest part of this circuit is that you have got these big round corners and you've got to make the time through the corners, whereas for me it's easier to make up time on the brakes".