BMW Motorrad Motorsport - WSBK - Assen - Qualifying Practice 1
Weather conditions: Mostly cloudy.
Temperature: Air: 16 – 20 °C, Track: 18 – 21 °C
Number of riders participating: 21 from 12 teams
Fastest lap Free Practice: Jakub Smrz (Effenbert-Liberty Racing) 1:37.159 min
Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: Jakub Smrz (Effenbert-Liberty Racing) 1:36.058 min
Everything goes according to plan for Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport at the third round of the FIM Superbike World Championship 2011 in Assen (NED). Works riders, Troy Corser (AUS) and Leon Haslam (GBR), finished the first qualifying session on their BMW S 1000 RRs in sixth and seventh. To save their soft tyres for tomorrow’s Superpole, both riders only went out on harder tyres. For a long time Troy and Leon lay first and second. They only slipped back in the classification in the last part of the session, when other riders switched to soft tyres to improve their lap times.
Troy Corser:
Fastest lap Free Practice: 1:37.583 min (P4)/Fastest lap Qualifying Practice: 1:36.876 min (P6)
“This Friday was fine, and this morning we had a good setting for the bike, based on last year’s settings and the test in Valencia. I was happy and comfortable with it. For this afternoon we made a few changes and went quite a bit quicker. At the beginning of the session we did a long run to get some laps on the tyre. That was quite consistent, so I am pretty happy with that as well. The setting of the bike is okay considering we only ran on hard tyres. I am happy. Of course it would be nice to be a bit further up the grid, but today it’s not so important as it’s only Friday. Everything is working the right way.”
Leon Haslam:
Fastest lap Free Practice: 1:37.606 min (P5)/Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: 1:36.989 min (P7)
“It was a pretty good Friday. It’s nice to be back at Assen, and I am feeling very confident on the bike. We made some progress in Valencia last week, so we were kind of making a set up with what we had there. I am feeling pretty confident. We were doing nearly the whole session with only one tyre. In Valencia we had a few new chassis parts, so setting them up for a new circuit was the priority today. Right now we need to concentrate on doing race runs. I am looking for tomorrow.”
Rainer Bäumel (Head of Race Operations):
“We are very happy with today, as everything is going according to plan. We have not used soft tyres so far, but saved them for tomorrow and today only ran on race tyres. I am pretty confident because, while everybody was on race tyres, which was until the last quarter of an hour, we were in front. So I think tomorrow will be even better for us.”
