World Superbike 2004 - Round 1 - Valencia - Saturday Qualifying

Foggy Petronas Racing riders Chris Walker and Troy Corser will start tomorrow's first races of the 2004 World Superbike championship at Valencia, Spain, from the third row of the grid after using race tyres throughout the second day's qualifying sessions.

Having performed better on Pirelli race rubber than the qualifying tyre constructions available, the decision was made to use race tyres for the one-lap Superpole shoot-out for qualifying positions. Chris set his best time of the day of 1:37.480 and improved his qualifying position during Superpole to start in 10th on the grid. Troy qualified in 12th with a Superpole lap of 1:37.667, with Regis Laconi setting the pace at 1:35.935.

Chris said: "That's one of the few times I have improved my position in Superpole and it was my best lap of the day so I was pretty pleased with that. The bike was working well and I did that lap on race tyres, whereas a lot of other riders were on qualifiers. With just one tyre working for us we did have to try a few things out and one of the things we attempted was to add some more weight to the back of the bike in order to give us more corner entry grip. But that resulted in loss of stability so I ended up putting the settings back to yesterday morning when I did my best lap of the weekend. It is going to be hard to pass people but if I can get dragged along down the straight and stay as wide as possible then there is no reason why I can't have a good race. I just need a Stalker start tomorrow and we'll be in the zone!"

The strong winds of yesterday returned to the Ricardo Tormo circuit, but a change in direction had an adverse effect on times throughout the day. Troy said: "Today the wind was blowing across the circuit and affecting us around the whole track. It was trying to blow you off the track at every corner. The bike is handling okay but we are still trying to make up as much time as possible through the corners. Starting from the third row is obviously a problem, as there are already ten bikes in front of us. I did my fastest laps of the day straight out of the gate this morning and feel as though I can stay in the mid-37s for the race."

The new USB Power Commander is already available for the ZX-10R, as is a powershifter