Team Suzuki Press Office – October 1 Team Alstare Suzuki’s Michel Fabrizio will start tomorrow’s pair of 23-lap World Superbike Championship races at Magny Cours in France from the fourth row of the grid after he and the team were unable to solve the problems in practice and qualifying.
Although the team tried many different solutions with the GSX-R1000, none of them worked sufficiently well for the Italian to proceed any further than Superpole 1. It was a disappointing afternoon, but they are hoping that tomorrow morning’s warm-up will provide some answers and at least allow Fabrizio to challenge in the races.
Jonathan Rea (Honda) took Superpole this afternoon with Eugene Laverty (Yamaha) second and series leader Carlos Checa (Ducati) third.
Michel Fabrizio – 14th, 1:38.565:
“Obviously I am very disappointed how things have turned out today. Yesterday was not good, but the team and I felt that we would find some solutions to our problems and improve, but it didn’t turn out that way. We seemed to have tried everything possible, but the bike is still giving me problems on the brakes and on acceleration out of the turns. We’ve tried going back to our base set-up, but even that hasn’t worked as we expected, so we will have to try some more ideas and hopefully I can then push the bike harder.
“Of course, my grid position is not good and I am going to have to make two superb starts if I am to have any chance of doing well tomorrow. If we can get the bike working better, I know that I can keep up a good race pace and chase some decent results. If we don’t improve the bike, the races are going to be very hard indeed. I remain positive that the team will improve the bike in the warm-up and then I will have a chance in the races.
Final Qualifying and Superpole: 1 Jonathan Rea (GBR-Honda) 1:37.490, 2 Eugene Laverty (GBR-Yamaha) 1:37.600, 3 Carlos Checa (ESP-Ducati) 1:37.932, 4 Leon Camier (GBR-Aprilia) 1:38.006, 5 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA-Ducati) 1:38.094, 6 Tom Sykes (GBR-Kawasaki) 1:38.094. 14 Michel Fabrizio (ITA-Alstare Suzuki) 1:38.565.
