Yamaha World Superbike riders Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty successfully completed the first qualifying session in Brno today, finishing up in third and fourth place respectively. While weather conditions were unpredictable with spatters of rain present in the early parts of the afternoon’s first qualifying, both riders recorded fast and consistent times as the session progressed.
Both Yamaha riders got straight down to business this morning working on Chassis set up ahead of Sunday’s race day. Laverty struggled with an issue on turning his machine and completed the morning’s free practice session in tenth place. Team-mate Melandri, satisfied with the direction he was going in search of a suitable race set up, took third place in the morning’s session.
Both riders head into tomorrow’s second qualifying session intent on fine tuning the race set up on their machines and working on tyre choice for Sunday’s races, taking into consideration the high possibility of rain and thunderstorms threatened for the remainder of the weekend.
Marco Melandri
Yamaha World Superbike Team – 3rd, 1’59.653
“Today was a pretty good day for us despite the difficult conditions. The track was very bumpy and the weather was not favorable, it was very windy. The bike was working well and this is clearly a good track for my R1. Overall I’m very happy but I need to improve in some sectors and work on tyre choice to ensure durability. At the moment they seem to work well for few laps and then deteriorate rapidly. I’m confident ahead of Sunday’s races.”
Eugene Laverty
Yamaha World Superbike Team – 4th, 1’59.906
“I’m pretty content with the day. This afternoon went much better than this morning’s free practice. I was off the pace this morning but improved in the first qualifying and the bike was turning really well on the side which was an issue earlier in the day. We still need to improve the front end of the bike but I’m confident we can do that. Tomorrow we’ll also work on tyre duration and race pace. At the moment I am where I want to be for a Friday so I’m satisfied.”
Andrea Dosoli – Yamaha World Superbike Team Manager
“Today was definitely a good start to the weekend for both riders. Marco and Eugene proved to be consistent and have a good rhythm. After working on and improving the bike’s chassis set up and change of direction earlier in the morning, the riders proceeded to work on tyre choice which will be vital especially seen as the temperature of the asphalt is quite low and they suffer more than we expected. We still need to see where we can fine tune to recuperate the three and five tenths of a second off the lead time. Both riders need to work on the front end of the bike to ensure better feeling on entering the flowing chicanes, especially in areas where the asphalt is not as smooth as it used to be with bumps clearly present.”
2011 World Superbike Czech Republic
Brno 08/07/2011
1 Carlos Checa Ducati ESP 1’59.322
2 Jakub Smrz Ducati CZE 1’59.585
3 Marco Melandri Yamaha ITA 1’59.653
4 Eugene Laverty Yamaha GBR 1’59.906
5 Max Biaggi Aprilia ITA 1’59.940
6 Tom Sykes Kawasaki GBR 2’00.154
7 Leon Haslam BMW GBR 2’00.164
8 Michel Fabrizio Suzuki ITA 2’00.196
9 Sylvain Guintoli Ducati FRA 2’00.310
10 Ayrton Badovini BMW ITA 2’00.348
11 Leon Camier Aprilia GBR 2’00.440
12 Maxime Berger Ducati FRA 2’00.463
13 Noriyuki Haga Aprilia JPN 2’00.494
14 Lorenzo Lanzi BMW ITA 2’00.580
15 Mark Aitchison Kawasaki AUS 2’00.604
