Rizla Suzuki racers side by side on second row RIZLA SUZUKI’S James Haydon and John Reynolds will start from sixth and seventh on the second row of the grid for tomorrow’s 12th round of the British Superbike Championship at Donington Park. James crashed unhurt in the morning session but came back strong in the afternoon, slashing nearly two-seconds off his best lap time to claim sixth on the grid. He is planning to test a change to the front suspension on his GSX-R1000 in warm-up for the races tomorrow and is confident he can improve his lap times even further. JR was provisionally third on the grid after first qualifying before a crash in the final session meant he was unable to improve his time, eventually ending up seventh and line astern his team mate on the second row. Ducati’s Gregorio Lavilla is on pole position. Superbike racing starts at 1315hrs on Sunday, September 25th, at Donington Park in Leicestershire. All the action will be shown at 1700hrs on Sky Sports while a highlights programme will be broadcast on Channel 4 one week later. James: “A big thank you to my team for all the hard work they put in this afternoon to get me onto the second row. We made small incremental changes all session to my suspension and every step was positive, giving me more feel and confidence in my Rizla Suzuki. “I’m pleased to be on the second row as that gives us a chance in the races. My position might even have been better if I hadn’t been distracted by a crash at the Esses on my fast lap. The Rizla Suzuki is good – before the second session we were 20 per cent away, now I’d say we are only five per cent away. We will try a minor change to the forks in the morning to see if we can find that last extra little bit.” JR: “What a frustrating day! I managed to record some really fast laps on a race tyre and then when I switched to a qualifier I crashed. After that and without my damaged number one bike I was unable to improve my times. “If you want to go faster, you have to try harder. Unfortunately when I pushed that little bit more on a qualifying tyre, I lost the front end and crashed. I want more front-end feel from my GSX-R1000 and that’s what we will be working on in warm-up for the races.” Robert Wicks, Team Manager: “James and his crew put in an enormous amount of effort this afternoon and have been rewarded by a strong second row starting position. He’s good off the line and from there the plan will be to get away with the leaders and see if he can challenge for the podium. “JR is without a doubt one of the fastest riders on race tyres at this circuit. When he tried to go faster on a qualifying tyre he lost the front end and that unfortunately ruined any chance of him improving his grid position. The upside is that he’s on the second row and is extremely determined to get a result in front of his home crowd.” Qualifying Times: 1: Gregorio Lavilla (Ducati) 1:31.458, 2: Leon Haslam (Ducati) +0.204, 3: Michael Rutter (Honda) +0.592, 4: Ryuichi Kiyonari (Honda) +0.659, 5: Glen Richards (Kawasaki) +0.832, 6: JAMES HAYDON (RIZLA SUZUKI) +0.884, 7: JOHN REYNOLDS (RIZLA SUZUKI) +1.154, 8: Dean Thomas (Kawasaki) +1.346, 9: Karl Harris (Honda) +1.445, 10: Dennis Hobbs (Yamaha) +1.453.