Imola: Team Alstare Engineering Friday report

SUPER NINTH FOR MAX ON DAY ONE. Team Alstare Engineering Corona Extra rider Max Neukirchner finished the first day of qualifying at Imola with the ninth fastest time, in a session that saw the top thirteen riders separated by less than a second! Max, like his fellow Alstare riders Troy Corser and Yukio Kagayama , suffered rear grip problems in the afternoon when the track temperature rose. Max's ninth position today was ahead of factory riders from Ducati, Yamaha, Honda and Kawasaki and was a good start to the weekend.

MAX - 9th, 1:50.659 I'm very happy today because I feel that the whole package is improving. The morning session was good, but when we made a change to the chassis for the afternoon session it was not so good. So we went back to the morning setting and worked from that. In the afternoon, when it was hotter, the grip was definitely down and that is a problem that we've had before and that is our biggest problem at the moment. We'll try some front and rear suspension changes tomorrow morning and see we can improve the bike.

-credit: team alstare engineering