BMW Motorrad Motorsport - WSBK - Brno - Qualifying Practice 1
Brno – Free Practice & Qualifying Practice 1.
Friday, 08 July 2011.
Weather conditions: Overcast with some sun in the afternoon.
Temperature: Air: 24 – 25 °C, Track: 36 – 38 °C
Number of riders participating: 21/22 from 14 teams
Fastest lap Free Practice: Jakub Smrz (Team Effenbert Liberty Racing) 2:00.200 min
Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: Carlos Checa (Althea Racing) 1:59.322 min
Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport qualified provisionally on the second row for the eighth round of the FIM Superbike World Championship at Brno (CZE). Factory rider Leon Haslam (GBR) finished the first Qualifying Practice seventh after being in the top four for a long time. The team used the day to work on race preparation for Sunday. The two riders from the BMW Motorrad Italia SBK Team, Ayrton Badovini (ITA) and Lorenzo Lanzi (ITA), finished in tenth and 14th respectively.
Factory rider Troy Corser (AUS) is not able to compete due to the fractures he suffered at the last round at Aragón (ESP), but is spending the weekend with the team at Brno. He is looking forward to racing again in the next round at Silverstone (GBR).
Leon Haslam:
Fastest lap Free Practice: 2:01.200 min (P8)/Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: 2:00.164 min (P7)
“Brno is one of the tracks I really enjoy riding at. The day was pretty good, and the weather was okay. We worked through quite a lot of chassis stuff. We are still struggling a little bit with the engine pushing in some corners, but we are working hard on solving that. At the moment we are seventh, so we have to improve a little bit, but it was a pretty good first day.”
Rainer Bäumel (Head of Race Operations):
“The work is a bit difficult when you have only one rider, because you are able to collect only half the data. Today we concentrated on finding a good set-up for this circuit. In Brno this is quite tricky on a Friday, as the track has not a lot of grip yet, and this is quite extreme here. The grip just improves over the course of the weekend, so you always have to adjust the bike a little bit, but we are pretty happy. We are in seventh, and between P4 and P8 it is quite close. They are only separated by two tenths of a second. Now we will continue to work hard.”
