Superbike – SuperPole Phillip Island – Leon Haslam dominates followed by Fabrizio and Crutchlow

Leo Haslam and his Suzuki won the first Superpole of the 2010 season on the Phillip Island circuit. The Suzuki rider managed to reach a time of 1'31.229, preceding Michel Fabrizio and his official Ducati by 16/1000ths of a second; completing the front row we find the Englishman Cal Crutchlow on Yamaha (2009 Supersport world champion) and Carlos Checa who yesterday with his Ducati was the fastest in qualifying.

In the second row Silvian Guintoli (Suzuki), Jakub Smrz (Ducati), Jonathan Rea (Honda), James Toseland (Yamaha) and Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati). Further back is Noriyuki Haga who, with the Ducati, is unable to go beyond tenth place. Max Biaggi is also late, struggling with some stability problems with his Aprilia and the BMWs which we find in 13th place with Troy Corser. The first Kawasaki is that of the British Sykes while the former Suzuki MotoGP rider Chris Vermeulen is only fourteenth.

Tomorrow's race (race 1 will start at 12pm Australian time, 2am in Italy while race 15,30 will start at 5,30pm local time, XNUMXam Italian time), promises battle, with Haga who, as he often has done, will be combative as the checkered flag dropped, and with Biaggi who may have solved the stability problems of his Aprilia for the race and Byrne who was very fast in practice and penalized by a crash.

Leon Haslam: “You can get trapped quite easily in Superpole so at the start of each session we went out to go fast straight away. We used a soft tire in the race option for the first Superpole and I immediately felt comfortable with it. When I put on my first qualifying tire I found it slippery, so I wasn't sure what tires to use in the final session, but we went out on a qualifying tire and set the fastest time."

Michelle Fabrizio: “The second qualifying tire we used worked better than all the ones we had tried and it was with that that I set the best time. I'm pretty good in hot conditions, if the weather situation doesn't change I'm confident for the race. ”

Cal Crutchlow: “The last lap went well but I made some mistakes in the second session and went off the track. In the last session I had to push a lot because I was using the race tire which is softer. I think tomorrow I can confirm the same position in the race too, I'll start from the front row and I can do it."

Superpole Phillip Island

1. 91 Haslam L GBR Suzuki GSX-R1000 1′31.229
2. 84 Fabrizio M ITA Ducati 1098R 1′31.245
3. 35 Crutchlow C GBR Yamaha YZF R1 1′31.642
4. 7 Checa C ESP Ducati 1098R 1′31.671
5. 50 Guintoli S FRA Suzuki GSX-R1000 1′31.696
6. 96 Smrz J CZE Ducati 1098R 1′31.757
7. 65 Rea J GBR Honda CBR1000RR 1′31.912
8. 52 Toseland J GBR Yamaha YZF R1 1′32.019
9. 57 Lanzi L ITA Ducati 1098R 1′32.205
10. 41 Haga N JPN Ducati 1098R 1′32.229
11. 3 Biaggi M ITA Aprilia RSV4 1000 F. 1′32.293
12. 66 Sykes T GBR Kawasaki ZX 10R 1′32.398 0.883
13. 11 Corser T AUS BMW S1000 RR 1′32.430
14. 77 Vermeulen C AUS Kawasaki ZX 10R 1′32.561
15. 111 Xaus R ESP BMW S1000 RR 1′32.842
16. 2 Camier L GBR Aprilia RSV4 1000 F. 1′32.895
17. 76 Neukirchner M GER Honda CBR1000RR 1′32.782
18. 67 Byrne S GBR Ducati 1098R 1′32.823
19. 88 Pitt A AUS BMW S1000 RR 1′33.207

Raffaele Racioppi