Kenan Sofuoglu will start tomorrow’s final 2009 World Supersport championship race at Portimao in Portugal from the front row of the grid after setting the fourth fastest time in this afternoon’s qualifying session. The Turkish rider lapped the 4.59km Portimao circuit in a time of 1’45.157s as Honda’s Eugene Laverty took pole position with series leader Cal Crutchlow just 0.073s behind him. Sofuoglu’s Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team-mate Andrew Pitt faces an uphill battle with a third row start, having been eleventh fastest today. Kenan Sofuoglu P4, 1’45.157s This morning’s free practice session was perfect and I was confident of doing a mid-44s lap. But the grip this afternoon was much lower than this morning and the times didn’t come. We changed tyres and maybe went the wrong way, but it’s good to know that everything is so close, with just half a second splitting the top six. It will be the same in the race tomorrow, I am sure, and I am ready to win. Andrew Pitt P11, 1’46.072s There’s not much to report, really. The session didn’t start well when I found it really hard to shift gear, and then the grip levels dropped from this morning. I thought we’d be OK this afternoon but I just couldn’t find the grip even though we tried the harder tyre. It’ll be an interesting tyre choice for tomorrow, but we’ll just give it a good go from where we are. Ronald ten Kate team manager As we all remember from last year, it’s going to be a very hard battle in the race tomorrow. We’ll try to find a bit more grip for Andrew in the morning warm-up but he’ll need a good start to be in the thick of it. We know that Kenan will be mixing it from the start, though, and it should be an exciting race. 2009 World Supersport championship, round 14 Portimao, Portugal Final qualifying results: 1 Eugene Laverty (IRL) Honda 1’44.836s 2 Cal Crutchlow (GBR) Yamaha 1’44.909s 3 Michele Pirro (ITA) Yamaha 1’45.087s 4 Kenan Sofuoglu (TUR) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda 1’45.157s 5 Joan Lascorz (ESP) Kawasaki 1’45.161s 6 Garry McCoy (AUS) Triumph 1’45.366s 11 Andrew Pitt (AUS) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda 1’46.072s More, from a press release issued by ParkinGO Triumph BE1 Racing: Team ParkinGO Triumph BE1 Racing reaffirmed their goal for tomorrow, that of ending the season with a great performance. Garry McCoy finished qualifying in sixth place and was even the quickest in the second half of the circuit. He is confident for tomorrow’ s race despite having some doubts about what tyres to use. Chaz Davies partially fixed his problems, which prevented him from performing at his best, but he is still slowed down by an issue in the last corners of the track. Warm up will therefore be crucial for both riders tomorrow morning, when a few solutions will be tried out in order to improve the machine for the race. GARRY McCOY | Triumph Daytona 675 | 6th in 1’45.366: “We got a very good setup which allowed me to put down a time almost as good as the pole position. We need some more grip in the back though because we’re not as fast in the first part of the track as we are in the second split. I’m confident I can score a good result and hopefully I’ll be able to keep my eighth place in the standings”. CHAZ DAVIES | Triumph Daytona 675 | 14th in 1’46.514: “If I can fix the issue that is slowing me down in the last two corners, I’m sure I can ride a good race. I now have a better feeling with the bike and the track, but in that particular section of the circuit I am eight tenths of a second slower than my teammate, who paradoxically is the fastest. However, we’re on the right path and thanks to the telemetry data and tomorrow morning’s warm up we can definitely improve”. Qualifying: 1 50 Laverty E. (IRL) Honda CBR600RR 1’44.836 2 35 Crutchlow C. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R6 1’44.909 3 51 Pirro M. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’45.087 4 54 Sofuoglu K. (TUR) Honda CBR600RR 1’45.157 5 26 Lascorz J. (ESP) Kawasaki ZX-6R 1’45.161 6 24 McCoy G. (AUS) Triumph Daytona 675 1’45.366 7 117 Praia M. (POR) Honda CBR600RR 1’45.436 8 99 Foret F. (FRA) Yamaha YZF R6 1’45.742 9 8 Aitchison M. (AUS) Honda CBR600RR 1’45.886 10 77 Veneman B. (NED) Honda CBR600RR 1’46.052 11 1 Pitt A. (AUS) Honda CBR600RR 1’46.072 12 21 Fujiwara K. (JPN) Kawasaki ZX-6R 1’46.216 13 55 Roccoli M. (ITA) Honda CBR600RR 1’46.443 14 23 Davies C. (GBR) Triumph Daytona 675 1’46.514 15 36 Cardenas M. (COL) Honda CBR600RR 1’46.614 More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki: Lascorz Fifth In Qualifying WSS, Portimao, Portugal, 24 October 2009 Joan Lascorz was only 0.325 seconds from pole in qualifying at Portimao, and now starts from the second row of the grid, in fifth place. Katsuaki Fujiwara was unfortunate to suffer a crash in the middle of the qualifying session, which conspired to drop him down the pre-race order. He now starts from the third row, having set the 12th best time of the lone qualifying session. Both Lascorz and Fujiwara had put their names at the top of the qualifying leader board at one time, before other riders upped their pace. The overall track conditions at Portimao have improved greatly over the past two days, allowing times to drop in the strong winter sunshine in Portugal and that good weather is expected to continue on raceday. Joan Lascorz: “Better to be on row one than row two but another rider followed me around and then set a faster time. The balance of the bike is good, the engine is strong and all we have to do now is sort out the final settings on the front forks to be ready to race. Whatever we change will be a little change and the track is in good condition now. We know the tyres we will use so we are ready for tomorrow.” Katsuaki Fujiwara: “I had a crash in the middle of the qualifying session and lost some time. I had just changed the settings and it felt better, but maybe it was not so good for front grip. So we will go back a bit on the settings, somewhere between where we started and what we have now. I did not test last week so we have not had the same track time as some people, but we will be ready to race.” More, from a press release issued by Yamaha: Yamaha World Supersport rider Cal Crutchlow continued to show the fast consistent pace needed to claim the title this weekend in today’s Supersport qualifying session. The British rider was never out of the top three, showing consistent fast lap times throughout the session. Crutchlow ended the heat with a front row start on the grid in second spot. His final time of 1’44.909 was less than a tenth of a second of pole position rival Eugene Laverty. Crutchlow’s team mate Fabien Foret had a solid session but ended still looking for something extra from his Yamaha R6. The French rider improved his set up from the first day but still felt he could find further feeling in the front end for tomorrow’s race Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha World Supersport Team (2nd, 1’44.909) “It was a good enough session for today and I’m really happy to have qualified on the front row. I do need to be careful tomorrow, I need to stay out of the way of any less experienced riders and keep my focus. I need to do my job, which is to win the championship and not just the race.” Fabien Foret, Yamaha World Supersport Team (8th, 1’45.742) “Another second row start for me, I think we’re still missing something to make the bike more comfortable and stable. Otherwise I still find it hard to do one flying lap but overall my pace is good. I hope we can improve the bike a little bit in the warm up then I can manage a pretty strong race and anything could happen.” Wilco Zeelenberg, Yamaha World Supersport Team Manager “Everything is good today, Cal just missed out on pole to Eugene by a tenth of a second, he was looking hot for a couple of laps and his time did drop into the red but it didn’t work out. He didn’t come in to change tyres, he just continued so that may not have helped. It would have been nice to take the last pole position of the championship but it’s not our target, we need the championship title, and with our lap times it should be in range. Fabien struggled a bit in qualifying with the front end, he feels the bike is a bit nervous so his ideal lap should be half a second faster. We are hoping to find a solution for that, but other than that his speed is good and he’s fit and ready for it so we’ll see.”