BMW Motorrad Motorsport - WSBK - Imola - Superpole
Imola – Qualifying Practice 2 & Superpole.
Saturday, 24 September 2011.
Weather conditions: Sunny.
Temperature: Air: 26 – 28 °C, Track: 35 – 44 °C
Number of riders participating: 22 from 14 teams
Fastest lap Qualifying Practices: Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) 1:47.799 min
Fastest lap Superpole 3: Carlos Checa (Althea Racing) 1:47.196 min
Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport has a promising platform for the 11th round of the 2011 FIM Superbike World Championship. The team will start tomorrow’s races at Imola (ITA) from the second row. Factory rider, Leon Haslam (GBR), finished today’s Superpole qualifying in sixth. His team mate Troy Corser (AUS) encountered some grip issues and qualified 15th. Ayrton Badovini (ITA) from the BMW Motorrad Italia SBK Team finished in seventh and will also start from the second row on his BMW S 1000 RR. His team mate Xavi Fores (ESP) qualified 22nd.
Leon Haslam:
Fastest lap Qualifying Practices: 1:48.396 min (P6) / Fastest lap FP: 1:48.254 min (P3) / Fastest lap Superpole 3: 1:48.081 min (P6)
“I have been feeling confident all weekend and we managed to get the bike working well yesterday. That gave me a lot of confidence coming into Superpole but today we had a few issues with the bike which made things difficult. We still managed to qualify on the second row of the grid however, which is a good position to be in going into tomorrow’s races. On the whole I am feeling pretty happy and looking forward to tomorrow.”
Troy Corser:
Fastest lap Qualifying Practices: 1:48.879 min (P13) / Fastest lap FP: 1:49.033 min (P13) / Fastest lap Superpole 1: 1:48.894 min (P15)
“We have been improving with every session this weekend and we have found a pretty good set-up on race tyres. Sadly when we changed to qualifying tyres we were not able to take advantage of the extra grip. I actually set my fastest lap on race tyres but that wasn’t good enough to progress further in Superpole today. Still, we are happy with the race set-up. We just need a good start tomorrow in both races and then let’s see what happens from there.”
Rainer Bäumel (Head of Race Operations):
“On Leon’s side, we encountered unexpected issues this morning. This might have been due to today’s higher temperatures but we were able to sort this out for the Superpole. In the deciding third part, Leon was out on the slower race tyre, as we had no qualifying tyres left. He was very consistent and quick, which makes me optimistic for tomorrow. With Troy’s RR we found a good set-up for the Superpole. Unfortunately the qualifying tyre did not work. We could not get enough grip out of it. However we have confidence in him for the race as we have a good race set-up for his bike.”
