Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha Sterilgarda) was in dazzling form in the final session of testing at Imola, posting the fastest time of 1’47.478 to beat the previous track best from last year’s race. The English rider used a race tyre to set his best time. The next three riders who were fastest over the two days of the tests had to rely on earlier lap times to take their places in the final rankings, with Michel Fabrizio (Ducati Xerox) second, on a 1’47.854 that he set this morning. Crutchlow declared: “I got through a bit of stuff today. It was a good enough job and we strung quite a few good laps together and did 30-odd laps on one of the new tyres. So all-in-all, not too bad. We will keep going and see what we can do in the next races.” Leon Haslam (Alstare Suzuki) had two big crashes today, the second a collision with his fellow Briton Shane Byrne (Althea Ducati), with Shane cutting his hand and suffering a suspected broken second metacarpal bone. Haslam was still third fastest overall, but was reliant on his day one best time. Jonathan Rea was faster today than yesterday on his Hannspree Ten Kate Honda CBR, and the last rider with a time inside the 1’47s. A somewhat rejuvenated Noriyuki Haga (Ducati Xerox) was fifth, heading off third place rider in the overall championship standings, Carlos Checa (Althea Ducati). Ruben Xaus was fast in the morning session today, going seventh overall in the standings, but stopping early to rest the leg he hurt in a collision with another rider at Misano on Sunday. Before his late session fall, Byrne had done enough to secure eighth place, one up on championship leader Max Biaggi (Aprilia Alitalia). Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) rounded out a top ten of great variety, with all seven competing manufacturers represented. In the Supersport division, which was scheduled alongside the Superbikes for two days, Kenan Sofuoglu (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) was the fastest, with a 1’51.572 lap from this morning. In yesterday’s session for the Superstock 1000 runners the rankings were headed by Ayrton Badovini (BMW Motorrad Italia STK) who recorded a lap time of 1’52.375. From the start of July pre-sales will be getting underway for the Imola round of the Superbike World Championship on September 24-26. For further information, go to www.ticketone.it. More, from a press release issued by Xerox Ducati: THE DUCATI XEROX TEAM CONCLUDES TWO DAYS OF VERY POSITIVE TESTING AT IMOLA Imola (Italy), Wednesday 30th June 2010: Temperatures were marginally lower for the start of the second day of testing at Imola (27°C air, 30°C track temperature) and the Ducati Xerox riders Noriyuki Haga and Michel Fabrizio were able to continue with the testing of the various Pirelli tyre compounds, with some extremely positive results. Fabrizio concluded the morning session at the top of the timesheets, having recorded some very impressive lap times (1m47.8), better than those set last year. His best lap this morning was 0.5 seconds faster than his flying lap yesterday. During the same session, Noriyuki and his team were able to increase traction which gave the Japanese rider a better feeling with his 1198, and allowed him to register some interesting lap times. Unfortunately twenty minutes before the lunch break, and while testing the new front tyre that he hadn’t ridden with yesterday, Haga had a low speed crash, on entry in Tosa corner, losing the front though fortunately uninjured. He closed his session there, having recorded the sixth fastest time, made in his penultimate exit with a new rear tyre. Haga went straight back out after lunch and immediately set a 1’48.5, despite the elevated track temperature. Lap times, for both Nori and Michel, remained constant and they closed the session in second (Noriyuki) and third (Michel) position. The time recorded by Fabrizio this morning (1’47.8) was the overall second fastest time of the two-day test, four tenths from Cal Crutchlow’s fastest lap, registered late this afternoon; Haga set his own fastest time (1’48.0) right before concluding his session today, improving by eight tenths on his best time set yesterday, to finish fifth overall. Michel Fabrizio “We continued with the tyre testing today and with one of the new rears I had a particularly good feeling and went half a second faster than yesterday which wasn’t bad. We’ll see how the tyres behave when we return for the race but on hot tarmac they have worked well, providing a good level of grip. Now I’ll start to concentrate on the next event at Brno, a track a like very much.” Noriyuki Haga “These two days of testing have gone very well. As usual we’ve tried various settings over the two days and I found a good feeling with the front; it’s only a shame that I had a crash this morning let’s say that the new front tyre solution is not for me. With the new rears on the other hand I was able to get into a good rhythm, with a good pace. We will continue with the work during the September race weekend to see if we can further improve absorption levels, but I can say that I’m satisfied with what we’ve achieved here.” TIMES (overall): 1. Crutchlow (Yamaha) 1’47.7; 2. Fabrizio (Ducati Xerox) 1’47.8; 3. Haslam (Suzuki) 1’47.9; 4. Rea (Honda) 1’47.9; 5. Haga (Ducati Xerox) 1’48.0; 6. Checa (Ducati) 1’48.1; 7. Xaus (BMW) 1’48.3; 8. Byrne (Ducati) 1’48.6; 9. Biaggi (aprilia) 1’48.6; 10. Skyes (Kawasaki) 1’48.9 More, from a press release issued by Yamaha: The Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team headed straight off to Imola following last weekend’s race at Misano, and today completed a two day test in the sweltering Italian sunshine. The team spent the two days testing further areas of electronics, including traction control, wheelie control and launch control. They also worked to find improvements in the chassis, in particular the balance of the bike. At the end of the test it was Cal Crutchlow who came out fastest of the World Superbike riders, recording a time nearly half a second faster than closest rivals. Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team (1st, 1’47.478, 125laps) “I’m happy with result of the test but we’ve got to win the races as well. We’ve tried a lot of different settings here, finally the best are close to how we started at the beginning. Hopefully over the summer break we’ll get some new parts and make more of a difference. We’re going to Brno with good confidence and we’ll take away from this test some good positives.” James Toseland, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team (11th, 1’49.031, 127laps) “It’s been a bit of a frustrating test for me. We’ve been concentrating over the two days on trying various different settings to try and maximise the grip on the bike as opposed to focussing on getting the fastest lap time. At the end of it I don’t feel I’ve managed to get closer so I’ve been struggling a bit.” Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team “We tested quite a lot of different things here at Imola, including various areas of electronics, we’ve also looked at the chassis to see what we can do to improve the balance. Both riders also spent some time testing some new tyres that Pirelli bought to the test. Cal finished fastest at the end and put in an impressive performance. James was not as fast so we need to look at our data and see what we can do to improve this.” More, from a press release issued by Althea Racing: Imola, June 30th 2010 – High temperatures (over 30°C) characterised the two-day test session that concluded today at the Autodromo Internazionale “Enzo e Dino Ferrari” in Imola. Among the participants was the Althea Racing team, one of two private outfits that joined the seven factory teams. Carlos Checa planned to test a few new technical innovations with a view to possibly implementing them in one of the coming races. He completed 118 laps and, contrary to the factory riders, didn’t use the new tyres brought to Imola by Pirelli. Carlos made constant improvement throughout the four sessions and at the end of the two days he had recorded the sixth fastest time overall. Shane Byrne could not use the new tyres for his 97 laps either. The Englishman set his best lap time in the final session, occupying ninth position at the close of play. During this last session while Byrne was on an out lap, Leon Haslam (presumed to be victim of a mechanical problem) collided violently with him. Shane found himself thrown to the ground and suffered a deep cut to his left hand. Genesio Bevilacqua, General Manager of Althea Racing, declared, “We tried something new that we can use as a back-up plan at the next races. Making the most of these two days, we gave Carlos some (electronic) solutions that he had evaluated. I’m sorry for what happened to Shane but we hope that he is fine in time for Brno. An English rider like him will surely be able to fight back with determination, also considering his results at Brno last year.” The Althea Racing team, after participating in the coming weekend’s CIV round (Italian Superbike Championship), will head to Brno for the ninth round of the World Superbikes. FINAL TIMES: 1. C. Crutchlow (Yamaha) 1’47″478 – 2. M. Fabrizio (Ducati) 1’47″854 – 3. L. Haslam (Suzuki) 1’47″966 – 4. J. Rea (Honda) 1’47″990 – 5. N. Haga (Ducati) 1’48″096 – 6. C. Checa (Ducati) 1’48″147 – 7. R. Xaus (BMW) 1’48″329 – 8. S. Byrne (Ducati) 1’48″666. More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki: Official Kawasaki Teams Perform Well During Imola Testing Newsflash, 30 June 2010 Kawasaki Racing Team Superbike riders Tom Sykes and Chris Vermeulen, plus Kawasaki Provec Motocard.com Supersport rider Joan Lascorz worked hard during a fruitful two-day test, on 29 and 30 June. Having completed a gruelling race weekend on Sunday 27th June at Misano, the entire Kawasaki race effort quickly relocated its trucks and equipment a little further north to Imola for the official tests. The almost 5km long parkland circuit will be the venue for the penultimate round of both the Superbike and Supersport World Championships, on Sunday September 26th. The track sessions at Imola, organised by championship rights holders IMS and the championship’s single tyre supplier Pirelli, were held in steamy conditions, with temperatures over 30°C for much of the two days. Very long track sessions – from 9am to 1pm and then from 2.30pm to 6pm each day – meant that the workload for all in the teams was intense and challenging, especially coming so close to the end of a busy race weekend. For the Superbike squad, with many suspension settings and tyres to work through, it was not just a useful test, but one in which Sykes would put himself into the top ten, with a 1’48.943 set in the morning of the second day. Vermeulen, who is still suffering from stiffness and some lack of mobility in his injured right knee, found the test exhausting but well worth the effort. He was particularly happy to work on verifying settings and materials that he has so far only used at races. He did not use a qualifying tyre near the end of the final session to go for a better time, preferring to try all the new tyres and all possible machine settings. Said Tom after his pleasing test results, “We have done a lot of testing over these two days and that has been really good. We have tested just about everything, made a lot of progress and also seem to have found some consistency on tyres. Overall, a very positive test. Hats off to the whole of the team; they have worked hard and lots of things have been changed on the bike. It has been a busy two days and I will definitely sleep well tonight!” Chris Vermeulen said, “We have gone through some of the parts that have been introduced through the year and this is the first chance I have been able to do something on the bike, without being under the pressure of race weekend, since my accident. Conditions were pretty extreme so we were trying to get as much good information as we could. Consistently we are a lot closer to the front, so that is very positive. The new tyres that Pirelli brought have been good. We did not run a qualifier at these tests because that is only to get a number on a time sheet.” In the Supersport division, Lascorz was one of only three riders there from the regular line up at races, and the only Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R rider on show. He was second fastest, but spent his time working on finding new tyre combinations, plus trying out settings for his new rear shock and latest front fork modifications, all to good effect. He set a huge total of 177 laps, more than any rider in Supersport or Superbike. Joan said, after two days of full effort, “A good test here, I am happy with the work we have done. Last year I did not test at Imola, but our team has done a good job this time. I tested the new tyres, some new fork settings, a new rear shock and other things. I found some positive new tyres at this test, some not so good. It was very useful to have this test and I think we are really ready for the Brno race now.”