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World
SuperBike 2002 - Round 4 - Sugo Saturday - SuperPole / Grid - Kawasaki Report Apr 20th, 2002 |
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Kawasaki's wild card riders, Akira Yanagawa and Eric Bostrom, will start
tomorrow's two Superbike races from the second row of the grid, after
qualifying sixth and eighth respectively in today's Superpole shootout
at Sugo. Fuchs Kawasaki rider, Chris Walker, was relegated to fourteenth
place, and the fourth row of the grid, after struggling for grip on his
Superpole lap. 'I had a couple of slides on the left hand side of the qualifying tyre on my out lap, which didn't really do my confidence much good,' explained Walker. 'You really do need to have complete confidence in the tyre to get the best out of a qualifier and I just didn't have it today. It's disappointing because I was going real well in regular qualifying. I guess I'll just have to get a good start tomorrow.' Akira Yanagawa may be concentrating his efforts on developing Kawasaki's ZX-RR GP machine this season, but the Japanese rider proved that he still knows his way around a Superbike at Sugo this afternoon. Yanagawa qualified sixth fastest, making him the highest placed Kawasaki rider on the grid for tomorrow's two races. 'It's been a long time since I've ridden on a qualifying tyre, as we don't use them in the Japanese Superbike Championship,' said Yanagawa. 'I think if I'd had a bit more experience on qualifying rubber this season, then I would have posted a faster time in Superpole. But, overall, I'm quite happy with my performance and my grid position. I was lapping consistently at around 1'29.4 on race tyres in regular qualifying, so we know we're in pretty good shape for the race tomorrow.' Having described yesterday as 'miserable', Eric Bostrom was a lot happier following his Superpole performance this afternoon. The reigning AMA Supersport 600 Champion had struggled to find a workable set-up on Friday but, with the help of his team, eventually arrived at a set-up during today's free practice session that allowed him to knock over half a second off his previous best on his Superpole lap. 'The first couple of corners felt real special, but then I blew a few later in my Superpole lap,' said Bostrom. 'I know there's a lot more to come and, if I'd have been a bit more courageous with the qualifier in some of the turns, and less gun shy with the throttle, you'd have seen that today. We've got the smallest problems to sort out on the bikes - one of them turns real well and the other has good grip, and we need to find a compromise on both - but the team did a real good job of sorting things out for Superpole.'
The following riders did not make the SuperPole cut-off
NB: Hitoyasu qualified for SuperPole but highsided during qualifying and as a result has to miss this weekend's round with a fractured left radius. Organisers then promoted Eric Bostrom from his 17th position on the time sheets to 16th which enabled him to run SuperPole. The American took full advantage during SuperPole and moved himself up to the 2nd row. |
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