World Superbike
Imola: Ten Kate Honda Saturday summary
Foret takes it easy as rain falls. Fabien Foret, who leads the World Supersport title chase by 17 points, decided to sit out a wet qualifying session, safe in the knowledge that he already had pole position wrapped up. "That was easy for me," he ...
Edited: Sep 30, 2002, 3:51 AM
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Foret takes it easy as rain falls.
Fabien Foret, who leads the World Supersport title chase by 17 points, decided to sit out a wet qualifying session, safe in the knowledge that he already had pole position wrapped up.
"That was easy for me," he laughed. "I didn't want to take any risks. The race is what really matters, and I will do my best but also I plan to take it easy and not take unnecessary risks."
The Ten Kate Honda team sent out Paul Young, who is riding an identical CBR600 in the Van Zon Honda TKR team out to work on a wet set up. It was a good plan because Young was fastest in the session!
The weather means the grid for the race on Sunday was decided by Friday's times, handing Foret his sixth pole position of the season. The flying Frenchman has been on pole for 50% of the races!
"It's an incredible achievement and it illustrates just what a talent Fabien is," commented Team manager, Ronald Ten Kate. "Obviously the pressure is on us because we are leading the championship going into the last round. But we have handled it well and kept our cool. All we can do now is race."
Iain MacPherson also only rode for a handful of laps, "It was very slippery and not really worth taking any risks," commented the Scot, "there was no way I was going to be able to improve on my grid position so we called it a day. I'd prefer it to be dry in the race, but if it's wet then at least it's the same for all of us. But whatever the weather is, we are confident because the Pirelli tyres work well in the wet or dry and the WP Suspension guys have worked really hard with us to get everything perfect."
With a World Championship hanging in the balance, all eyes will be on Fabien Foret and the Ten Kate Honda team on Sunday.
World Supersport qualifying times (from Friday's dry session):
1 Fabien Foret, France (Ten Kate Honda) 1m 53.376s,
2 Katsuaki Fujiwara, Japan (Suzuki) 1m 53.500s,
3 Chris Vermeulen, Australia (Van Zon Honda TKR) 1m 53.652s,
4 Andrew Pitt, Australia (Kawasaki) 1m 53.729s,
5 Stephane Chambon, France (Suzuki) 1m 54.105s,
6 Giovanni Bussei, Italy (Ducati) 1m 54.154s,
7 Alessio Corradi, Italy (Yamaha) 1m 54.171s,
8 Paolo Casoli, Italy (Yamaha) 1m 54.243s,
9 Iain MacPherson, GB (Ten Kate Honda) 1m 54.657s,
10 Robert Ulm, Austria (Yamaha) 1m 54.866s.
-tkh-
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