At the end of a damp and dismal opening qualifying session (weather-wise), Beowulf Racing’s Nick Henderson lies in 27th place for Sunday’s second round of the 2006 FIM Superstock 1000 Cup at the Italian circuit of Monza. Despite several off-track excursions, the Australian admits to liking the historic track but his progress has been hindered not only by the weather but braking and suspension problems as well. Italian Claudio Corti (Yamaha) currently tops the time sheets although Henderson is confident about closing the gap tomorrow – if the weather will co-operate just a little more!

After the first round of the series at Valencia a fortnight ago, Henderson commented he was looking forward to the high-speed turns of the 3.6-mile Italian track. During this morning’s free practice session, Nick had no trouble blasting the Beowulf Suzuki to a top speed of 176mph, but problems with his brakes meant that he overshot several chicanes. A further heart-stopping moment occurred when another rider braked suddenly in front of Henderson, forcing him to travel the length of the back straight on the grass although he was able to keep his machine upright and rejoin the session. At the end of the practice, Nick lay in 31st place with a time of 1:57.956. Henderson also has to contend with the fact that eight riders from the series were here at a national Italian Superbike round last weekend, gaining valuable additional track time.

With the rain just beginning to spit down lightly as the gate opened for this afternoon’s first timed qualifying session, Nick decided to circulate the track very much on his own rather than with a pack of other riders and risk being involved in a multi-bike pile-up. The weather kept changing during the 45-minute session, sometimes being clear, sometimes spitting and towards the end raining lightly. This led to several periods of inactivity as riders pitted and waited for conditions to improve and the session ended with not a single rider on the track. Although Henderson appeared to be one of the most stable riders on the circuit, he later revealed he had been fighting against a rear suspension problem. Despite this, he recorded a best lap time of 1:57.220 to bag 27th place on the timesheet out of a field of 37 riders. Claudio Corti, who won the Superstock 600 race at Monza last year, tops the list with a time of 1:52.431.

“I’m more at home here than at Valencia, that’s for sure” said Henderson afterwards. “The Suzuki can handle the fast corners really well, but you have to brake so heavily for the chicanes. The trick to a fast lap seems to be to do a bit of slipstreaming and I’ll need to work on that tomorrow. Realistically, I think I can drop two seconds in tomorrow’s sessions which still doesn’t take me where I want to be but should be good enough for the front four rows to start Sunday’s race, and we’ll take things from there.”

Saturday will consist of a further free practice session and a second timed qualifying period, lasting 30 and 25 minutes respectively.
Sunday’s race will be an 11-lap affair which, weather permitting, should serve up the usual frantic battle this Italian circuit is famed for.

FIM SUPERSTOCK 1000 CUP, RD 2 MONZA
Qualifying Session 1 Results

1 Claudio Corti (Ita) Yamaha 1:52.431
2. Alessandro Polita (Ita) Suzuki 1:52.635
3. Ilario Dionisi (Ita) Yamaha 1:53.305
27. Nick Henderson (Aus) Suzuki 1.57.220