The Ducati Xerox Team pairing of Troy Bayliss and Lorenzo Lanzi powered to the front during today's opening World Superbike qualifying session at the Assen circuit in the Netherlands. On the new shorter 4.555 km TT track, Troy and Lorenzo were the first - and only - two riders to get below the 1m40s mark, thus making clear their intentions for Sunday's ninth round of the championship.

"I'm really pretty happy with the way things are going" declared Troy, who has signed up for another two years with the Italian squad. "I had a nice break in the three weeks since Brands, hopped back on the bike this morning and basically fell straight into a good rhythm. The team worked really good today and it's just nice to know I'm back where we left off. Both Lorenzo and I did a good job today, let's hope it can continue throughout the weekend. I quite like the new part of the track actually, for some reason the old part was more flowing but I always had a bit of trouble there. Now the bike works really well round there for me and I've got nothing to complain about. Apparently there'll be a change in the weather for the worse tomorrow but I'm not bothered. We've got a good dry setting and we can work on the wet setting if it does."

"Both Troy and I went really well today and this gives me great satisfaction" declared Lorenzo. "Assen is a circuit that I really like and I did a lot of good laps on my own this morning to get to know the new part. We still have to improve with the race tyre duration even though my pace is good so there's some work to do there. Considering that it is only Friday, I think we have a good starting-point. On paper the new part of the circuit actually looks worse than it is, but all in all it's pretty easy to ride. It's important to start at the front here in Assen because you never know what the weather is doing from one session to the next. We've staked a good place in Superpole, now we've got to fight for it tomorrow".