2002 World SuperBike Championship - Round 13 - Imola - Qualifying 1

Making their debut at Imola this weekend, the Fuchs Kawasaki pairing of Chris Walker and Hitoyasu Izutsu quickly got to grips with the historic Italian circuit, to finish today's opening qualifying session fourteenth and fifteenth fastest respectively.

30-year-old Walker made good progress today, despite having to learn his way around the unfamiliar 4.933Km Imola circuit. Fourteenth fastest at the end of qualifying, Walker will test a number of changes to the set-up on his Fuchs Kawasaki ZX-7RR during tomorrow's qualifying and practice periods.

'It's my first time here but the circuit is great fun to ride,' declared Walker. 'There are a fair few changes of tarmac and a lot of elevation over the lap, so it's proving a little bit difficult to learn. At the moment I seem to be able to put in some quick lap times, but only as long as I am with someone - preferably an Italian who knows his way around. But when I'm on my own I'm struggling, and we've hit a bit of a brick wall with reference to bike set-up. The plan now is to try something fairly different for tomorrow on one of the bikes and see what progress we can make.'

Just two tenths of a second down on his Fuchs Kawasaki team-mate this afternoon, Hitoyasu Izutsu goes into tomorrow's final regular qualifying session fifteenth fastest, after finally experiencing an improvement in the wrist he injured at Sugo back in April.

'After Assen I went to Japan for another operation on my wrist, because it hadn't improved as much as the doctors originally predicted,' said Izutsu. 'They have removed one of the screws, which was too long, and now it is more comfortable and I have less pain. It has been a long time since I broke my wrist and I think the problems I have experienced recently are down to the first operation. As for the race, this is my first time at Imola; the circuit is long and hard to learn, but I hope to improve my position tomorrow.'