LACONI AND TOSELAND (DUCATI XEROX TEAM) FIFTH AND NINTH IN BRNO HEAT

Brno (Czech Republic), Friday 15 July: Régis Laconi and James Toseland set fifth
and ninth quickest times respectively in first WSBK qualifying at Brno as a
last-minute scramble on qualifying tyres moved them away from the top positions.
Both Ducati Xerox Team riders, who tested here in much cooler conditions one
month ago, complained about a lack of grip on their qualifying runs, but were
confident with their performance on race set-up.

“I was passed by quite a few riders at the end of the session, because they ran
an extra lap on their qualifying tyres and with this heat it was easy for them
to get their time down” declared Laconi. “I tried the new tyre, it wasn’t the
same one I normally use but I wasn’t happy with my qualifying performance on it.
I thought it was a quick lap, but it was only one-tenth faster than my time on a
race tyre so we’ll have to take a look at everything and see what happened
because I’m not happy to be one full second off the pace even though we’re all
on qualifying tyres. Walker tested with us last month so it’s no surprise to see
him at the front but we will certainly have to sort things out for tomorrow’s
session.”

“We’re not a mile away, we’re in the top 3 on race tyres but the qualifier I had
didn’t seem to work as well as we expected and I went from third to ninth at the
end” commented Toseland. “We have a few problems here because of the temperature
difference and it seems that every lap we do the tyres change so much that you
need a different setting on the bike from the test when it was ten degrees less.
This morning I did a 2m04.1s on my second lap out and now I’m doing 2m05s laps
with the same setting so it’s a bit frustrating. We’ve just got to make sure we
get the setting right for tomorrow because I am confident that I can get two
good results here.”

TIMES:

 1. Walker (Kawasaki)        2m03.054s
 2. Corser (Suzuki)          2m03.487s
 3. Neukirchner (Honda)      2m03.912s
 4. Cardoso (Yamaha)         2m03.917s
 5. Laconi (Ducati Xerox)    2m04.184s
 6. Sanchini (Kawasaki)      2m04.330s
 7. Clementi (Ducati)        2m04.336s
 8. Vermeulen (Honda)        2m04.436s
 9. Toseland (Ducati Xerox)  2m04.613s
10. Haga (Yamaha)            2m04.729s