FIM Superbike World Championship Imola, Italy September 23 Provisional Qualifying Results (all on Pirelli tires): 1. Jonathan REA, Great Britain (Honda CBR1000RR), 1:48.241 2. Carlos CHECA, Spain (Ducati 1098R), 1:48.400 3. Leon HASLAM, Great Britain (BMW S1000RR), 1:48.701 4. Michel FABRIZIO, Italy (Suzuki GSX-R1000), 1:48.726 5. Marco MELANDRI, Italy (Yamaha YZF-R1), 1:48.844 6. Tom SYKES, Great Britain (Kawasaki ZX-10R), 1:48.884 7. Sylvain GUINTOLI, France (Ducati 1098R), 1:49.003 8. Maxime BERGER, France (Ducati 1098R), 1:49.023 9. Noriyuki HAGA, Japan (Aprilia RSV4 Factory), 1:49.041 10. Jakub SMRZ, Czech Republic (Ducati 1098R), 1:49.072 11. Federico SANDI, Italy (Ducati 1098R), 1:49.125 12. Alessandro POLITA, Italy (Ducati 1098R), 1:49.134 13. Leon CAMIER, Great Britain (Aprilia RSV4 Factory), 1:49.282 14. Ayrton BADOVINI, Italy (BMW S1000RR), 1:49.394 15. Mark AITCHISON, Australia (Kawasaki ZX-10R), 1:49.665 16. Joan LASCORZ, Spain (Kawasaki ZX-10R), 1:49.781 17. Ruben XAUS, Spain (Honda CBR1000RR), 1:49.855 18. Eugene LAVERTY, Ireland (Yamaha YZF-R1), 1:49.991 19. Troy CORSER, Australia (BMW S1000RR), 1:50.011 20. M. BAIOCCO, Italy (Ducati 1098R), 1:50.104 21. Roberto ROLFO, Italy (Kawasaki ZX-10R), 1:51.086 22. Javier FORES, Spain (BMW S1000RR), 1:51.790 More, from a press release issued by Infront Motor Sports: Rea cooks up a sizzler on day one Imola (Italy), Friday 23 September 2011 Jonathan Rea (Castrol Honda) was the man to watch in Friday’s first qualifying session at Imola as the Northern Irish rider powered to a time of 1 minute 48.241 seconds, just a fraction away from the 2010 best lap set by Carlos Checa. On a hot day of qualifying, with temperatures almost reaching 30 degrees C, there wasn’t much in it at the very top, however, as Althea Racing Ducati man Checa (last year’s double winner and favourite for this year’s title) finished just a tenth away from Rea, and in second place. For the first time this season Rea was running a ride-by-wire throttle control system on his Honda machine, after a recent change to the technical rules in the Superbike class. Third place on the provisional grid went to Britain’s Leon Haslam (BMW Motorrad Motorsport), who took his S1000RR close to the leading duo after looking competitive right throughout the hour. Leon was followed home in fourth by Michel Fabrizio (Suzuki Alstare), who also looked at ease on the newly resurfaced Imola track. Fifth was the other title contender Marco Melandri (Yamaha World Superbike), who got home ahead of Nürburgring winner and last year’s Imola poleman Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team Superbike). Frenchmen Sylvain Guintoli (Effenbert-Liberty Racing Ducati) and Maxime Berger (Supersonic Ducati) completed the provisional second row. The virtual third row after the first qualifying session featured four riders who were all within a second of leader Rea, the first of them being Noriyuki Haga (Pata Racing Aprilia), followed by Guintoli’s team-mate, Jakub Smrz. Local wildcard Federico Sandi (Althea Racing Ducati) was an impressive 11th fastest, followed home by another local for the Barni Racing Ducati team, Alessandro Polita. Lone works Aprilia Alitalia rider Leon Camier was 13th, but still only just over a second from Rea out front. BMW Motorrad Italia SBK’s replacement for the recently retired James Toseland, Javier Fores, was 22nd in his first ever WSBK ride. Times: 1. Rea J. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 1’48.241; 2. Checa C. (ESP) Ducati 1098R 1’48.400; 3. Haslam L. (GBR) BMW S1000 RR 1’48.701; 4. Fabrizio M. (ITA) Suzuki GSX-R1000 1’48.726; 5. Melandri M. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R1 1’48.844; 6. Sykes T. (GBR) Kawasaki ZX-10R 1’48.884; 7. Guintoli S. (FRA) Ducati 1098R 1’49.003; 8. Berger M. (FRA) Ducati 1098R 1’49.023; 9. Haga N. (JPN) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 1’49.041; 10. Smrz J. (CZE) Ducati 1098R 1’49.072; 11. Sandi F. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1’49.125; 12. Polita A. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1’49.134; 13. Camier L. (GBR) Aprilia RSV4 Factory 1’49.282; 14. Badovini A. (ITA) BMW S1000 RR 1’49.394; 15. Aitchison M. (AUS) Kawasaki ZX-10R 1’49.665; 16. Lascorz J. (ESP) Kawasaki ZX-10R 1’49.781; etc. World Supersport Luca Scassa (Yamaha ParkinGO) returned to the top of the timesheets at home at Imola with a time of 1 minute 52.375 seconds to head the overnight Supersport grid positions. The Italian was a fraction ahead of Broc Parkes (Kawasaki Motocard.com) and title favourite, team-mate Chaz Davies (Yamaha ParkinGO). Fabien Foret (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) ran top for some of the session but eventually finished fifth, while Sweden’s Alex Lundh (Cresto Guide Honda) put in one of his best performances so far to take the next slot. Britain’s Sam Lowes (Parkalgar Honda) was fastest at one point in the session but a crash dropped him down to tenth. Times: 1. Scassa L. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’52.375; 2. Parkes B. (AUS) Kawasaki ZX-6R 1’52.553; 3. Davies C. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R6 1’52.736; 4. Foret F. (FRA) Honda CBR600RR 1’53.056; 5. Lundh A. (SWE) Honda CBR600RR 1’53.301; 6. Marino F. (FRA) Honda CBR600RR 1’53.329; 7. Tamburini R. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’53.432; 8. Salom D. (ESP) Kawasaki ZX-6R 1’53.471; etc. Superstock 1000 All the main runners were up at the top in the Friday qualifying run, with newly-crowned Italian CIV Superstock 1000 champion Danilo Petrucci (Barni Racing Ducati) holding a slight edge over points leader Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing Ducati) with a time of 1 minute 51.046 seconds. The two Ducati men were followed by another of this year’s race winners, Sylvain Barrier (BMW Motorrad Italia STK) just a fraction behind, while Niccolò Canepa (Lazio Motorsport Ducati) completed the provisional front row. Lorenzo Zanetti (BMW Motorrad Italia STK team) in fifth was followed by three more Italians, Lorenzo Baroni (Althea Racing Ducati), Andrea Antonelli (Lorini Honda) and Michele Magnoni (Baru Racing Team BMW). Times: 1. Petrucci D. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1’51.046; 2. Giugliano D. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1’51.204; 3. Barrier S. (FRA) BMW S1000 RR 1’51.220; 4. Canepa N. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1’51.674; 5. Zanetti L. (ITA) BMW S1000 RR 1’51.904; 6. Baroni L. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1’51.959; 7. Antonelli A. (ITA) Honda CBR1000RR 1’52.511; 8. Magnoni M. (ITA) BMW S1000 RR 1’52.702; etc. Superstock 600 Italian riders locked out the provisional front row grid positions in European Superstock Q1 at Imola. Overnight pole will go to Misano winner Giuliano Gregorini (RCGM Yamaha) with a time of 1 minute 56.394 seconds, three-tenths ahead of Dino Lombardi (Martini Corse Yamaha), Nicola Morrentino (Elle2 Ciatti Yamaha) and Riccardo Russo (Trasimeno Yamaha). The first non-home rider is points leader Australian Jed Metcher (MTM-RT Motorsports Team) in fifth with his closest championship rival Romain Lanusse (MRS Yamaha) right behind. Times: 1. Gregorini G. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’56.394; 2. Lombardi D. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’56.706; 3. Morrentino N. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’56.837; 4. Russo R. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’56.855; 5. Metcher J. (AUS) Yamaha YZF R6 1’56.949; 6. Lanusse R. (FRA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’57.365; 7. Vd Mark M. (NED) Honda CBR600RR 1’57.572; 8. Cocco F. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’57.642; etc. More, from a press release issued by Althea Racing: A POSITIVE FIRST DAY FOR CARLOS CHECA (ALTHEA RACING) AT IMOLA Imola (Italy), Friday 23rd September 2011: the eleventh round of the World Superbike Championship got underway today at the Autodromo di Imola and championship leader Carlos Checa got straight down to business, concluding the morning’s practice session in first position and the afternoon’s qualifying in second. In the weekend’s first free practice session, which took place this morning in hot and sunny conditions (27ËšC air, 33ËšC track), the Althea Racing rider made a solid start and a fast time mid-session projected him into first position. He continued to improve on his lap times and recorded a best in the final minute of the session. The 1m49.2 lap time was three tenths quicker than the best set by second-placed rider Haslam. Federico Sandi, participating this weekend as a wildcard with team Althea Racing, was making good progress during this first practice session, getting to grips with the Pirelli tyres and slowly improving his times. Unfortunately, due to a technical problem in the final phase, the young Italian had to close his session slightly early, meaning 16th place and a best time of 1m50.7. Back out this afternoon for the first qualifying session, Carlos continued with the work, recording consistently faster times than those set this morning. His best, a 1m48.4 set in the final stages, was enough to ensure him of second position at the close of the session, just two tenths of a second behind Rea in first. Sandi, this morning’s issues resolved, was able to make good progress, dropping his times by a good second and a half to record a best of 1m49.1. This lap time put him in eleventh position at the session’s end, with only a tenth of a second separating him from the four riders ahead of him. Carlos Checa: “I’m pleased with how today went. We felt strong here last year but this year with the new asphalt it is a little different and we’re trying different tyre compounds to see what works best. I think we’ll find a good compromise. We’re satisfied with today’s results and tomorrow we’ll hopefully make another step up. Many people ask how I will approach this weekend but I’ll basically be doing what I do every week, concentrating on one race at a time!” Federico Sandi: “I am happy to tell the truth because this afternoon we were able to find good feeling with the Pirelli tyres that are all new for me with this bike. We improved a lot this afternoon compared to this morning and compared to times I’ve recorded here in the past. I am eleventh but I see that I am very close to the four or five guys ahead of me and this gives me confidence. Tomorrow we’ll continue to work to make further improvements.” TIMES (QUALIFYING): 1. Rea (Honda) 1’48.2; 2. Checa (Ducati) 1’48.4; 3. Haslam (BMW) 1’48.7; 4. Fabrizio (Suzuki) 1’48.7; 5. Melandri (Yamaha) 1’48.8; 6. Sykes (Kawasaki) 1’48.8; 7. Guintoli (Ducati) 1’49.0; 8. Berger (Ducati) 1’49.0; 9. Haga (Aprilia) 1’49.0; 10. Smrz (Ducati) 1’49.0; 11. Sandi (Ducati) 1’49.1 More, from a press release issued by Alitalia Aprilia: DIFFICULT FIRST QUALIFYING SESSIONS FOR LEON CAMIER, THE SOLE DEFENDER OF THE APRILIA ALITALIA RACING TEAM COLOURS WITH MAX BIAGGI FORCED TO FORGO THE RACE. Imola, September 23rd, 2011 Forced to participate with only one bike due to the reluctant absence of Max Biaggi, all eyes of the Aprilia Alitalia Racing Team are on Leon Camier. The Englishman, who has had a season of ups and downs thus far, faced more than a few difficulties during the first session of qualifiers, earning admission to Superpole tomorrow. His performance was certainly influenced by his unfamiliarity with the track (last year Leon missed the Imola round due to an injury). Camier ended the day with the thirteenth best time of 1’49.282 just more than a second (1.041) behind current leader, Carlos Checa. Currently ranked sixth in the overall World SBK standings, Leon’s hopes for recovery tomorrow are tied, among other things, to the extremely tight grouping of the top thirteen all within just over a second. “I must say that we didn’t do too badly where pace is concerned commented Leon but I wasn’t able to improve with the new tyre. The back end also went out on me during the first lap, so I lost a bit of confidence. On a positive note I’m maintaining good times on the worn tyre, so all that’s left now is to work on the fast lap in order to move up in the rankings and especially to have a good Superpole”. More, from a press release issued by PATA Racing Team: Noriyuki Haga shows off his best intensions during the opening day of Imola’s weekend. The PATA Racing Team rider did a great job on his Aprilia RSV4R ending with a ninth place. A position that gives hope to aim big and to is willing make his crowded supporters happy. Noriyuki Haga – Aprilia RSV4R #41 – “We are still not at our best. There’s lack of drive and we got to work on it. We have the chance to confirm ourselves but we have to deal with this issues on time for the races. Tomorrow we are going to look at it from a different perspective, before giving it all during the Superpole.” More, from a press release issued by Team Suzuki News Service: Team Alstare Suzuki’s Michel Fabrizio ended the first day of practice and qualifying at this weekend’s World Superbike Championship 11th round at Imola in Italy upbeat having set the fourth quickest lap of the day. He was not happy with the morning session, but this afternoon saw a big improvement and he ended the day with a good bike set-up and only fine-tuning to be done tomorrow. Jonathan Rea (Honda) finished first qualifying with the fastest lap with series leader Carlos Checa (Ducati) second. Third quickest today was Leon Haslam (BMW) with Fabrizio less than a tenth-of-a-second behind. Trailing Fabrizio was Marco Melandri (Yamaha) and Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) – making it six different manufacturers in the top six positions. Michel Fabrizio – 4th, 1:48.726: “This morning I was not so happy, but this afternoon everything went a lot better and we made quite a good improvement. I had some problems with the gearshift on the downshifts today, but that will be resolved for tomorrow. The track has been mostly resurfaced since we were here last time and now it is much better to ride. There are less bumps and the grip has definitely improved. As more rubber goes down, I’m sure that the grip level will get even higher. I found a good set-up this afternoon and so I think that tomorrow all we’ll have to do is a bit of fine-tuning and try out a few tyres. Friday qualifying: 1 Jonathan Rea (GBR-Honda) 1:48.241, 2 Carlos Checa (ESP-Ducati) 1:48.400, 3 Leon Haslam (GBR-BMW) 1:48.701, 4 Michel Fabrizio (ITA-Alstare Suzuki) 1:48.726, 5 Marco Melandri (ITA-Yamaha) 1:48.844, 6 Tom Sykes (GBR-Kawasaki) 1:48.884. More, from a press release issued by BMW Motorrad Motorsport: Weather conditions: Sunny. Temperature: Air: 27 28 °C, Track: 33 38 °C Number of riders participating: 22 from 14 teams Fastest lap Free Practice: Carlos Checa (Althea Racing) 1:49.294 min Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: Jonathan Rea (Castrol Honda) 1:48.241 min Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport had a very good start to the eleventh round of the 2011 FIM Superbike World Championship at Imola (ITA). The team provisionally qualified for the front row. Factory rider, Leon Haslam (GBR) finished the first Qualifying practice on his BMW S 1000 RR in third position. His team mate Troy Corser (AUS) provisionally qualified 19th. Ayrton Badovini (ITA) and Xavier Fores (ESP) of the BMW Motorrad Italia SBK Team finished in 14th and 22nd respectively. Leon Haslam: Fastest lap Free Practice: 1:49.531 min (P2)/Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: 1:48.701 min (P3) “I am really happy with the lap times. We did not use the soft tyre in qualifying and basically worked on race simulation. Our consistency is probably one of the best out there. I would say that this was one of the best starts we have had to a race weekend, so we are going to keep on pushing for tomorrow. Then it will all be about qualifying and choosing the right race tyre for Sunday. Today we have got some really good information and we will go on pushing in the same direction.” Troy Corser: Fastest lap Free Practice: 1:50.713 min (P15)/Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: 1:50.011 min (P19) “In the Qualifying session in the afternoon we used a different chassis setting than in the morning practice. It took us some time to set it up. We are a little bit behind, but Leon is right there. So we can compare and see what is different with the bike. So I am confident for tomorrow. I hope it will be dry in the morning, and then we are going to move up in the classification.” Rainer Bäumel (Head of Race Operations): “Leon did a great job. He was riding on used race tyres for the whole qualifying session and those were not the faster softer ones. That makes me confident that we are going to have a successful weekend. With Troy, we still have to fine tune the set-up of his RR a little bit. To do so we will analyse the data tonight and I am convinced that we can improve tomorrow.” More, from a press release issued by Team Alstare Suzuki: MICHEL HAPPY WITH FOURTH Team Alstare Suzuki rider Michel Fabrizio ended the first day of practice and qualifying at Imola, happy to have set the fourth quickest lap of the day. He was not happy with the morning session, but this afternoon saw a big improvement and he ended the day with a good bike set-up and only fine-tuning to be done tomorrow. Jonathan Rea (Honda) finished first qualifying with the fastest lap, with series leader Carlos Checa (Ducati) second. Third quickest today was Leon Haslam (BMW), with Michel less than a tenth of a second behind. Behind Michel today is Marco Melandri (Yamaha) and Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) – making it six different manufacturers filling the top six positions. Michel – 4th, 1:48.726 This morning I was not so happy, but this afternoon everything went a lot better and we made quite a good improvement. I had some problems with the gearshift on the downshifts today, but that will be resolved for tomorrow. The track has been mostly resurfaced since we were here last time and now it is much better to ride. There are less bumps and the grip has definitely improved. As more rubber goes down, I’m sure that the grip level will get even higher. I found a good set-up this afternoon and so I think that tomorrow all we’ll have to do is a bit of fine-tuning and try out a few tyres. More, from a press release issued by Yamaha: Melandri Gets to Grips with Imola Yamaha World Superbike Team riders Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty completed the first qualifying day at the iconic International Autodrome of Enzo and Dino Ferrari in Imola today in scorching hot sunshine. After 12 years since his 125cc race victory, Melandri returned to his home track in Imola and got straight down to business discovering what the Italian circuit has to offer. The Romagnolo spent this morning’s free practice session getting familiar with the characteristics of the flowing circuit and working on understanding his lines with the powerful R1 machine. Throughout the afternoon’s first qualifying session Melandri made some minor adjustments to the suspension and the electronics, allowing him to shoot up to fourth place in the time sheets mid-session, a position he maintained until the final stages before dropping to fifth. The Italian lapped comfortably and consistently throughout the afternoon and ended the first day at Imola, confident ahead of a promising weekend on his home soil. Teammate Eugene Laverty completed a less successful first day on the Italian circuit. Having spent the morning’s free practice session working through some minor changes to the base set up, the WSB Rookie was confident to continue making progress in the afternoon’s qualifying session. As the day progressed and the rubber on the newly surfaced track increased, Laverty struggled with a lack of grip on the rear of his machine, preventing him from improving his times. The Northern Irish rider completed the day in 18th place. Marco Melandri Yamaha World Superbike Team – 5th, 1’48.844 “Today went quite well, especially considering it’s a new track for me. We got off to a good start but we still have some improvements to make. It’s not easy to manage the horse power of the machine on the many inclines and declines this track has to offer. It was tough work to control the handling of the bike on the “false” straights, between one curve and the next. We have some adjustments to make for tomorrow but we are going in the right direction and hopefully we’ll make further progress in tomorrow’s second qualifying session.” Eugene Laverty Yamaha World Superbike Team – 18th, 1’49.991 “That was the toughest Friday I’ve had so far, by a long shot. We struggled with the new surface a lot. The morning wasn’t so bad but with more bikes lapping the track as the day went on, creating more rubber on the surface, the grip got worse and that’s causing us to struggle with our rear setting. We know what to do to improve the issue but we ran out of time in today’s session and got caught out. We have a lot of work ahead of us for tomorrow but we’ll do our best. It’s my learning year in Superbike and sometimes these things happen unfortunately.” Andrea Dosoli – Yamaha World Superbike Team Manager “It was a positive start for Marco today here at Imola. To complete the session in fifth place after 12 years since he last rode here is pretty good. He has put good consistent laps but is still struggling with the last sector. Our main target for tomorrow is to improve in this area, make some adjustments to the gearbox in order to find better feeling with the front of the machine and improve grip on the rear. We are not satisfied with Eugene’s times this afternoon. We expected him to improve form the morning’s free practice. He and the team will have to work very hard this evening to understand why he struggled so much in the qualifying session. He too will be making adjustments to gearbox and making some changes to the set up to find a better overall feeling on his machine.” More, from a press release issued by Troy Corser’s publicist: CONTAMINATED FUEL COSTS TROY TRACK TIME A loss of a lot of track time in this morning’s untimed practice cost Troy dearly and caused him to finish the day in lowly nineteenth position. But with the problem now resolved, Troy hopes he can catch up the pace tomorrow and still take a good grid position. Jonathan Rea (Honda) finished first qualifying with the fastest lap, with series leader Carlos Checa (Ducati) second. Third quickest today was Leon Haslam (BMW), with Michel less than a tenth of a second behind. Behind Michel today is Marco Melandri (Yamaha) and Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) – making it six different manufacturers filling the top six positions. Troy – 19th, 1:50.011 I seem to be out of luck at the moment. When we fired up my two bikes this morning just before the first practice, smoke started coming out! It seems that we had some contaminated fuel and we had to get that sorted that out before I could get on the track. This took some time and I missed a lot of the session as a result. I missed all of the session on a bike that I wanted to try out – as it had some different settings – so we were well behind our workload by the time the afternoon session began. I did manage to improve in the afternoon qualifying, but I still didn’t get enough time on one of the bikes. When I did get on it, I went a second quicker straightaway and I wanted to keep working on this one. The only problem with it is that we need to work on the engine braking, but once we’ve done that it is going to be even easier to ride. At the moment, I feel as I am skidding into the corners a bit and having a bit of a problem stopping. As there a lot of fast entrances here, it’s important to get the engine braking right. The technicians can see what’s happening on the telemetry and they’ll figure out what we should do tomorrow. The track has been resurfaced since last time and a lot of the bumps have gone, so it’s a big improvement for sure. It still feels a bit ‘green’ but as more and more rubber goes down, the grip level is going to increase further. More, from a press release issued by Castrol Honda: Rea tops the timing sheets at Imola Jonathan Rea showed that he’s back to full fitness by setting the fastest time in today’s first qualifying session at round 11 of the World Superbike championship at Imola in Italy. The 24-year-old, who returned to racing three weeks ago at Nurburgring in Germany following a three-month injury lay-off, took his Castrol Honda CBR1000RR to the top slot at the 4.936km Imola circuit in a time of 1m48.241s just two tenths quicker than series leader Carlos Checa. After a successful two-day test at Misano last week, Rea and his team opted to test further a new electronics package on the bike over the Imola race weekend, including a recently-sanctioned ride-by-wire system. Rea’s time was set with the new package. His Castrol Honda team-mate, Ruben Xaus, racing for the first time since July after his own injury problems, was seventeenth fastest today but the Spaniard is hopeful of further improvement during tomorrow’s qualifying and Superpole sessions. Jonathan Rea P1 1m48.241s I’m really happy because not only am I showing that I’ve come back strongly from the injury, but we’ve also taken the bike into a completely different ballpark now. It’s one of the many steps that we need to make towards 2012 and at the test in Misano last week we could definitely see the potential. We made the right decision to come here to test the ride-by-wire system and we were prepared to sacrifice time and results to develop this new system. We’ve made really good progress already on engine braking and corner entry. There’s still a lot to do on corner exit but the new surface here is much more grippy and the bike’s working well. After the first day here, it’s nice to see P1 on the board again and it gives the guys something to smile about. We’ll not be resting tonight because there’s a long list of things to work through, but hopefully we can keep improving tomorrow. Ruben Xaus P17 1m49.855s It’s been busy with the new electronics today and we’ve been using the full package, so there has been a lot of work to do. I think we’re quite satisfied but it’s still hard to get the feeling back after we’ve made some changes to the bike. We are struggling a little in the two sectors with chicanes, where the power delivery is a little strange. If we can work on those areas for tomorrow, we should be able to improve. Ronald ten Kate team manager Of course, it’s the start of the weekend we were all hoping for but it’s still work in progress. There are still a lot of areas where we have only scratched the surface so far but we are learning more about the new ride-by-wire system with every lap we complete. It’s going well but this is only provisional pole and we still need to work hard on the race set-up. This morning we did a long run with Jonathan which was going very well but I think it will be another long night for the crew to go over all today’s data and improve still further for tomorrow. However, as a team we really needed a day like this again, so we can smile a little tonight as well. More, from a press release issued by Team Pedercini: Sunny weather and hot temperatures today at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo and Dino Ferrari in Imola for the first Superbike and Superstock 1000 free practice and qualifying sessions. It will be a special weekend for Roberto Rolfo as he will make his 100th race start in World Superbikes, in race 1 on Sunday. Teammate Mark Aitchison is very motivated to perform well and finish the season on a high. In morning free practice both riders started to adapt their Ninja ZX 10R to the technical Italian circuit. Aitchison (1’50″942) was nineteenth while Rolfo (1’51″481) followed in twentieth position. Excellent performance for Aitchison in the qualifying session. Mark (1’49″665) improved his morning best lap time for more than one second obtaining the fifteenth position. Rolfo’s bike stopped twice and the Italian rider was forced to reenter the box on foot losing a lot of time. With his second bike Roberto (1’51″086) reached the twenty first position. Superbike free practice : 1) Checa (Ducati) 2) Haslam (BMW) 3) Melandri (Yamaha) 4) Smrz (Ducati) 5) Rea (Honda) “¦19) Aitchison (Kawasaki) 20) Rolfo (Kawasaki) Superbike Qualifying 1 : 1) Rea (Honda) 2) Checa (Ducati) 3) Haslam (BMW) 4) Fabrizio (Suzuki)- 5) Melandri (Yamaha) “¦ 15) Aitchison (Kawasaki) “¦ 21) Rolfo (Kawasaki) Roberto Rolfo :””In qualifying the bike stopped twice and the second time it happened at the Rivazza corner and I had to make my way back to the garage on foot, losing a lot of time in the process. In the time that remained we worked hard but didn’t do as well as we had hoped. I closed the session using my second bike but it wasn’t quite right and I was unable to do better than twenty-first position. Tomorrow we’ll work to make it into the Superpole.” Mark Aitchison :” I think today for me has not been easy to find a good rhythm on the bike. The Imola circuit is very different to the other past races and we must work on our bike’s balance and engine braking system overnight to improve. I enjoy riding here, but to go faster Imust feel a little more comfortable in some areas. If we can look to do this then I can work for our races on Sunday” Tati Mercado made a good start to his first day at the world famous Imola circuit. In morning free practice the Argentinian (1’55″284) gradually improved throughout the session to finish in fourteenth position. Bryan Staring (1’56″461) was three positions behind his team-mate while Marco Bussolotti was forced to stop after only few laps due to a technical problem. The Italian rider was really unlucky also in this afternoon’s qualifying session when he was able to complete only a few laps due to another technical problem. Mercado (1’54″106) was very fast throughout the entire session but unfortunately he found a lot of traffic during his best laps, reaching the fourteenth position while Staring (1’54″122) followed in fifteenth position. Superstock 1000 free practice : 1) Barrier BMW) 2) Zanetti (BMW) 3) Petrucci (Ducati) 4) Baroni (Ducati) “¦”¦. 14) Mercado (Kawasaki)”¦”¦”¦17) Staring (Kawasaki) NQ Bussolotti (Kawasaki) Superstock 1000 qualifying 1 : 1) Petrucci (Ducati) 2) Giugliano (Ducati) 3) Barrier (BMW) 4) Canepa (Ducati) “¦”¦. 14) Mercado (Kawasaki) 15) Staring (Kawasaki) “¦”¦.. NQ) Bussolotti (Kawasaki) Marco Bussolotti: “What can I say? It was a very difficult day for me and for my technicians. We had some technical problems both in morning free practice and afternoon qualifying and I was able to complete only three laps. I hope to do something better tomorrow.” Brian Staring: “This morning we had a technical problem in middle session and I lost some time. This afternoon we made some small adjustments to the bike and we improved during the qualifying session. It was not a good day because I’m having some difficulties through the chicane, but my technicians are now working to solve this problem and I’m sure tomorrow we can improve my lap times and my position.” Leandro “Tati” Mercado: “I’m disappointed because today my pace was very fast but unfortunately I found a lot of traffic in the last five minutes during my fastest laps. Anyway I’m pretty happy because my bike is working well and we just need to solve some chattering problems on the front. I’m confident for tomorrow”.