James Toseland (Winston Ten Kate Honda) had to ride with aggression and control in his Superpole lap to overcome the effects of an unexpected lack of traction on the Valencia track surface. As he slithered his way around the 4.005km circuit, tail sliding dramatically on the last left hand sweep in particular, he set the ninth best time overall. Despite his difficulties, James was clearly the best Honda rider on show once more. His ninth place in Superpole makes for a third row start in each of Sunday’s 23-lap Superbike races.

Giovanni Bussei (Winston Ten Kate Honda) was unlucky to find the Valencia track surface wet in the morning qualifying session, and thus had little realistic chance to improve on his opening day best time as it started to dry. He this missed out on Superpole qualification, and will start from 26th place on the grid.

Ronald Ten Kate - Team manager
“The maximum we could achieve has been achieved by the team today. Everybody worked very hard to cure some of the problems we have. There is still some stuff we want to test in the morning warm-up for James. We are pretty unhappy about Superpole of course, because we could all see him struggling quite a bit. We didn’t get the grip we were expecting from the qualifying tyre. On a race pace the gap is a little bit smaller and let’s hope that James has his race face on tomorrow and takes the maximum results possible. For Giovanni Bussei, he is learning the bike step-by-step and making some remarkable progress in his way, and had closed the gap to the midfield quite a lot. He will enjoy his racing a lot tomorrow.”

James Toseland – Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider
(9th position – 1’35.784)
“I was very disappointed the way Superpole went but I tried my best. It would have been better to get a second row start so things are going to be very tough tomorrow. But if I can get a good start, who knows? My speed on race tyres is better so we’ll be giving it everything as usual.”

Giovanni Bussei – Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider
(26th position – 1’37.520)
“This morning we lost almost one hour of practice because it was wet and only the last 15 minutes were useable. Working on the chassis set up in those circumstances was not so easy. But in the afternoon we made little steps; but definitely better ones, so I was quite happy with what we did. We will have the time to do something more in the warm-up tomorrow morning and I’m sure we can find a bit more to allow us to be faster in the two races.”

Supersport

Sebastien Charpentier (Winston Ten Kate Honda) did not need to improve on his first day track record lap time of 1’36.913 to take his third pole of the 2006 season, putting himself in the perfect starting spot for Sunday’s 23-lap Supersport race. It was the 30th consecutive front row start for a Honda machine in World Supersport. Charpentier concentrated his efforts on finding an optimum race set-up, after he found that the track offered marginally less grip than during the first day of qualifying.

Charpentier’s team-mate, Kenan Sofuoglu (Winston Ten Kate Honda) could not make the required improvements in his best qualifying time from a crash-affected day one to secure a much desired front row start alongside Charpentier. His eighth best time overall places him on the second row, in front of thirty other riders.

Ronald Ten Kate - Team manager - “We are happy to take the pole again, the third one of the season for Sebastien. He had already done the job yesterday, so today was a little change of strategy for us. We thought about the race most of the time and just confirmed some race set-ups and endurance runs on the tyres, so we were not pushing so much for a quick single lap. Sebastien is happy with the pace he can do on his race set-up. It will be fun racing but it will be close, as usual here at Valencia. The race is very long, 23-laps, so we’ll see tomorrow. Hopefully it will be dry so that the racing can be at its best. Things didn’t go as planned for Kenan today, the qualifying session was pretty bad but we are still on the second row, and we know how hard a racer he is anyway. But we are definitely going to have a look again at the changes we made to the settings. So tomorrow morning will be important for him to find the speed he has in him. We know he has this because of the times he set in the previous tests are considerably faster than he is setting now. So we’ll see tomorrow.”

Sebastien Charpentier – Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider - (1st position – 1’36.913) - “Some other riders got a little bit close but for the race I am OK, because it is not difficult for me to make many laps in the consistent 1.37s. Nothing to changes for tomorrow because the bike is good. The track was a little bit difficult for me this afternoon. I lost a little bit of time, corner-after-corner, because I think the track grip is not so strong as it. Either way, we are in good shape for the race tomorrow.”

Kenan Sofuoglu – Winston Ten Kate Honda Rider - (8th position – 1’38.489) - “I did not feel so strong after my big crash of yesterday, but I have to be strong in the race. I would have liked to get onto the front row but it didn’t work out here. My ambition was first row but second row isn’t so bad. I want to take good points from here and I will try my best.”