TOSELAND AND LACONI (DUCATI XEROX TEAM) FIND THE GOING TOUGH IN FIRST
QUALIFYING AT MAGNY-COURS

Magny-Cours (France), Friday 7 October: Both Ducati Xerox Team riders James
Toseland and Régis Laconi uncharacteristically found the going tough in the
first qualifying session for the final round of the World Superbike Championship
at Magny-Cours.

The 2004 world champion was down in seventeenth position following the first
qualifying hour while his French team-mate was two places further adrift.
Italian Lorenzo Lanzi on the third Ducati 999F05 machine, entered by the Ducati
SC Caracchi team, was in good form again today, clinching a provisional
front-row grid position behind pacesetter Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki), and the
surprise Australian duo of Karl Muggeridge (Honda) and Andrew Pitt (Yamaha).
Lanzi's time was set on race tyres.

Toseland, who set sixth quickest time in the morning’s free practice session,
improved in the afternoon but his time of 1m42.033s left him outside the top
16. “It was a tough session. We had a few problems this morning and even though
we were sort of going in the right direction, for some reason we haven’t found a
good base setting yet” explained Toseland. “That’s strange because the base
setting we’ve had for quite a few rounds has been all right and here it’s just
not gelling. I’m trying my hardest, doing bad lap times and that’s the worst
scenario. I know where the bike needs to improve, but we tried something and it
didn’t really work. We just dropped the forks a bit from this morning, nothing
major. I went point four of a second quicker but everyone else went so much
quicker as well”.

Laconi was still feeling the effects of his Assen crash which left him with
tendon damage in his right arm. “I just can’t seem to be able to use my arm well
enough and that causes a lot of bother because all the heavy braking is for the
right-hand curves. I had a feeling it would be like this here even before Imola,
which unlike Magny-Cours is an anti-clockwise track, and it proved to be true.
For the first part of the lap it’s OK but when there is a change in direction I
can’t brake well. Here unfortunately most of the hard curves are right-handers
and coming down the hill to the last one, it’s terrible for me. Let’s hope
things go better tomorrow”.

TIMES:

 1. Kagayama (Suzuki)           1m40.512s
 2. Muggeridge (Honda)          1m40.854s
 3. Pitt (Yamaha)               1m41.169s
 4. Lanzi (Ducati SC Caracchi)  1m41.184s
 5. Corser (Suzuki)             1m41.224s
 6. Martin (Petronas)           1m41.251s
 7. Checa (Yamaha)              1m41.437s
 8. Vermeulen (Honda)           1m41.473s
17. Toseland (Ducati Xerox)     1m42.033s
19. Laconi (Ducati Xerox)       1m42.249s