Donington Park (UK), Saturday 23 May 2015 – Having qualified yesterday in second and fifth position respectively, Giugliano and Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Superbike Team) returned to the Donington Park track today ready for Superpole 2.
After a short free practice this morning, which the riders concluded in fourth (Davide) and sixth (Chaz) place, the Superpole got underway at midday local time, in cool conditions (air temp. 12°C, track temp. 17°C) but on a dry track.
Superpole 2: Davies and Giugliano were straight out in this second phase of the Superpole, completing a lap each on the race tyre before returning to the pit garage to put in the qualifier. On the qualifying tyre, the Italian recorded an impressive 1’27.344 which positioned him among the leaders, in third place, and therefore ensures him of a front row start for tomorrow’s two 23-lap races. Welshman Chaz was able to put together two laps, the quickest of which, a 1’27.710, put him sixth at the session’s end, meaning that he’ll line up on row two of tomorrow’s race grid.
Quotes after the day’s sessions:
Davide Giugliano (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Superbike Team #34) – 3rd (1’27.344)
“We put together a great Superpole and the front row is very important here because if you’re further back you risk getting caught up in traffic through turn one. My bike is performing very well with the race tyre and small changes that we made this morning proved positive, allowing me to be consistently fast over more laps but with a little less physical effort. It’s also good that after yesterday’s crash we have immediately resumed the pace and the work completed today has provided us with a better set-up for tomorrow’s races, so I’m very pleased.”
Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Superbike Team #7) – 6th (1’27.710)
“I’m not really making the best of the qualifier and expected more of a drop in time, while it was only four tenths of a second of an improvement which wasn’t enough. It’s good that I’ve done a fast time on the race tyre but I’d have liked to have done more. Before tomorrow we’ll probably make a couple of changes to try and calm the bike down a bit and stop it moving so much. It’s not easy to achieve that at Donington with the tight corners and ups and downs, but we’d like to get the bike as stable as we can for the races.”
Weekend schedule (CET -1):
Sunday
9.00 – 9.15 – SBK Warm-up
12.00 – SBK Race 1
15.00 – SBK Race 2
