World Superbike

Misano: Team Ducati Saturday report

British rider Neil Hodgson (Ducati Fila) once again crushed the opposition in a World Superbike Superpole session. Pole ...

Published: Jun 21, 2003, 8:47 PM

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British rider Neil Hodgson (Ducati Fila) once again crushed the opposition in a World Superbike Superpole session.

Pole # 6 of the season for the championship leader came at Misano Adriatico, when he went half-a-second quicker than Toseland (HM Plant Ducati) in the one-lap dash and then watched in the garage as local hero Pierfrancesco Chili (PSG-1 Ducati) just missed out in front of his home crowd.

"I really had to go out and beat James' time today" declared Hodgson. "I've not been concentrating on qualifying tyres at all so I was a bit rusty and that's why I was slow in the first split. I had to be more aggressive on the second and third parts so I just turned the throttle up. I thought Frankie was going to beat me, but he didn't.

"Before I would have used about 15 qualifiers, end up fastest but have no race set-up but now I concentrate on getting a good race set-up and then concentrate on Superpole. It looks like I've got a slight advantage on the race tyres, but it's going to be hard work out there tomorrow because of the heat" he added.

Team-mate Ruben Xaus slipped down from fifth after the two qualifying sessions to an eventual 12th place after a disappointing Superpole lap.

"I did a bad Superpole and that cost me a lot of places on the grid" said Ruben. "I'm so angry with myself because the first split was so bad and all weekend I was so good there, losing eight-tenths of a second. A lot of riders are going well but I noticed they didn't do that many laps, it's just Neil and Laconi doing a good pace on race tyres. I'm able to be there as well, I just have to get a good start in the races.

"This afternoon we made a few changes and I wasn't entirely happy, so tomorrow morning in the warm-up I'll revert to the settings I had in the morning and then I'll be ready for the race" he added.

STARTING GRID:
1. Hodgson (Ducati Fila) 1'34.586
2. Chili (PSG-1 Ducati) 1'34.920
3. Toseland (HM Plant Ducati) 1'35.124
4. Iannuzzo (Suzuki) 1'35.261
5. Martin (DFX Ducati) 1'35.268
6. Laconi (NCR Ducati) 1'35.297
7. Borja (DFX Ducati) 1'35.808
8. Corser (Foggy Petronas) 1'35.835
... 12. Xaus (Ducati Fila) 1'36.227.

-tdf-

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