BAYLISS HEADS DAY 1 OF OFFICIAL SUPERBIKE TEST IN VALENCIA
Valencia (Spain), 18th March : Troy Bayliss was the front-runner for
the factory Ducati Xerox Team in the first of two days testing for the
World Superbike Championship regulars, excluding Honda Ten Kate, at
Valencia. In glorious sunshine, the Australian rider was fastest
throughout the day, recording his best lap of 1m34.482s in the cooler
morning session. Team-mate Lorenzo Lanzi was second-quickest in the
morning, but had a crash in the afternoon and dropped a place as Troy
Corser (Yamaha) moved up to split the two Ducatis.
"I did a lot of laps today in the two sessions" declared Troy, "and
this morning we did really good on the race tyre and I was quite happy.
This afternoon it was quite windy and the track wasn't in such a good
condition but we did a long-run anyway. The performance was better than
the race last year but we weren't completely happy with it. We'll test
a couple more tyres tomorrow to get a better idea, play with the
setting a bit but overall the bike is working well. I did a 33m7s here
last year and maybe I can go better than that tomorrow morning. We'll
have to wait and see but for the moment everything's going well and
it's a nice little freshen-up for Donington.""
"I set the third quickest time of the day, and the fourth in the
afternoon" commented Lorenzo. "It's not bad but to be honest I expected
a bit more seeing as I had been really quick here in November. I'm
still some way off those times I set then but today we tried a lot of
different solutions. I had a crash at the hairpin turn 2, but it had no
serious consequences. In the afternoon there was a lot of wind and we
only began to lap well again towards the end of the session. Valencia
is always the same, early in the afternoon the track is always a
disaster!"
DAY 1 TIMES : 1. Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) 1m34.482s; 2. Corser
(Yamaha) 1m34.895s; 3. Lanzi (Ducati Xerox) 1m35.128s; 4. Biaggi
(Suzuki) 1m35.203s; 5. Haga (Yamaha) 1m35.593s; 6. Nieto (Kawasaki)
1m35.607s; 7. Xaus (Ducati) 1m35.627s; 8. Polita (Suzuki) 1m35.769s; 9.
Kagayama (Suzuki) 1m35.785s; 10. Laconi (Kawasaki) 1m35.785s.
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