Brno: Ducati Friday report

LANZI GOES PROVISIONAL THIRD FOR DUCATI XEROX TEAM IN FIRST BRNO QUALIFYING - BAYLISS ELEVENTH

Brno (Czech Republic), Friday 21 July: Lorenzo Lanzi produced a positive performance for the Ducati Xerox Team at Brno, setting the third quickest time in Friday's opening qualifying session, while points leader Troy Bayliss could only manage an uncharacteristic eleventh place.

"It was a strange day. I hopped onto the bike this morning and I was just like on another planet. I wasn't there with it and who knows why!" commented Bayliss. "This afternoon I was feeling OK and we got going but the track was a bit warmer than last time I was here and I tried the hardest front tyre that we used last time and I nearly crashed twice. I fell off the side of the bike and was lucky to hang onto it, so that took a little of the feel away from it. We finally got going, had a problem with some adjustments and had to change tyres to the other bike at the last minute. I got one lap in which wasn't bad and the second one was going to be quite a bit better and then it started pouring so that was a bit of a let-down really. Despite that, all is OK and I'm looking forward to tomorrow!"

Satisfaction for Lorenzo Lanzi, who was always up amongst the front-runners during the first session. "I am very happy with today, things went really well" declared Lanzi. "We were all there with close times, but my pace on race tyres is already a pretty good one. I've also managed to find a satisfactory setting, and I'm already well up the grid so if it rains tomorrow I'm in a good position. Maybe my outright times are not as quick as in the test here once month ago, but my times on race tyres are and I'm happy with that. The guys did a great job today and the Lausitz tests were very useful because they allowed us to try some new things. Finally I'm getting back the feeling that has been missing in the last few races and that's important."

-www.ducati.com