WSBK - Qatar.

[greenmeanie]

Bayliss is back with provisional pole!


Despite the tricky track conditions, former World Superbike Champ, Troy Bayliss blasted his Xerox Ducati to provisional pole position, ahead of the first round of the Alstare Corona Extra World Superbike Championship in Qatar.

His lap time was 2mins 17.326secs, quite a long way off last year's lap record of 2mins 01.244secs, held by current World Superbike Champion Troy Corser. The race track was still drying out after very heavy rain which thwarted much of this mornings free practice session.

Second fastest was former Ducati man, Regis Laconi with a time of 2mins 19.064secs. Laconi has made the move to PSG-1 Kawasaki for this season, and is on board the all new ZX10R. He seems to be adapting well to the in line four instead of the V-twin that he has raced in recent years. His team-mate, Chris Walker wasn't far behind him and took up residence in fourth place.

Troy Corser was the Suzuki meat in the Kawasaki sandwich, as he split the two green machines. Corser will have quite a task this season holding onto his number one plate with stiff competition on all sides, and a very full grid of highly competitive riders.

[damo137]

Well done boys. We could have an aussie 1 & 2...

Now, I don't have foxtel, so does anyone know a good PUB with foxtel to watch the race this Saturday night?

Cheers

Damo

[NovaCoder]

Nice to see the ZX10 so competitive....should be a GREAT year

[icebreaker]

16 seconds off the lap record.. something tells me the lap times are going to have to improve for the boys in green to stay up the front...

[MadKaw]

PSG-1 Press Release.

Doha 23/02/2006

LACONI SECOND FASTEST ON GOOD OPENING DAY FOR PSG-1 KAWASAKI
The ever-changing track conditions in the first qualifying session of the 2006 season proved to be no handicap for the PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse trio of Regis Laconi, Chris Walker and Fonsi Nieto, all of whom placed inside the top ten. Riding the race version of the 2006 ZX-10R, Laconi was an impressive second fastest, using his proven wet-weather abilities to judge the conditions to the best advantage. Walker, despite wanting to fit a new tyre in the last few minutes, was fourth fastest, with Nieto riding more conservatively to tenth. Final qualifying, on the morning of Friday 24th February, is expected to dawn dry and sunny, as is raceday, Saturday 25th, but even if conditions return to being fully wet, each rider now has a safe Superpole place. If the second and final qualifying session is completely dry, each PSG-1 Kawasaki rider is looking to build on their opening day prowess while testing 2006 Pirelli control tyres.

REGIS LACONI: 2nd – 2’19.064: “I’m so happy for this early result and the rain helped me a lot. I still have to improve my feel with the bike because we need to get more kilometres on the bike in dry conditions. I hope it is dry tomorrow, even if that will make the competition even harder. I need a dry session or two to continue to understand the bike and make it the way I want.” CHRIS WALKER: 4th – 2’19.684: “We didn’t get a lot done in the fully wet session this morning, but so far so good. We went out at the end to go faster again but I really need a new back tyre and it was still wet on the exits of corners, even when there was a dry entry. Because we haven’t tested here, or with the new Pirelli rubber at a track we will be actually racing on in 2006, we really need to keep our tyre allocation for tomorrow, so we can try out a few of the newer versions.”

FONSI NIETO: 10th – 2’20.469: “Not so bad, for the start it’s OK. At the end of the session the track was so difficult, not quite dry but not raining any more, so it was hard to judge where to go faster with the rain tyres. But we are well qualified for Superpole if it does rain tomorrow, anyway, so that’s perfect for me.”

[Strika]

The slow lap times are due to the water. God to see the Kwaka's 2nd and 4th, but Bayliss is almost 2 seconds quicker than all of them!