Misano: Yamaha Teams Friday notes

Top five for Corser and Haga on day one

The intense heat and humidity that a settled on Misano on the first day of qualifying was no obstacle to Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) and Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) who each started out in competitive form.

A subtly new track layout on the first corner and partial track re-surfacing could not mask the bumps that were evident in several places on the Misano track, but despite this each YMI rider has already made good inroads in their overall machine set-up.

With the air temperature hitting 34 o.C during the afternoon qualifying, Corser went third on the stopwatch and Haga fifth, with Corser having started out fastest of all 27 competing riders in the first unofficial session this morning. Corser took over two tenths of a second from his morning time in official qualifying, using race tyres in each session.

A tough first day for the other officially supported Yamaha riders, Shinichi Nakatomi (Team YZF Yamaha), Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha GMT94) and David Checa (Yamaha GMT94) saw them 21st, 22nd and 23rd respectively.

Troy Corser (3rd - 1'37.224 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)

"Hot work today but it is going OK. We are trying some things on the bike and our lap times are comparable with the others, and we can still put in a tyre towards the end and go even faster. I'm feeling not to bad now and we are just fine-tuning the bike, working around our base setting. Even this morning, right out of the box, the bike felt pretty good. It's well bumpy out there, especially off the back straight. They have resurfaced some of it but there is less grip in those places also. The entry to the last corner is also very bumpy on the braking entry. The track is short and pretty intense in general and you have to work in the corners, but I feel good about this weekend."

Noriyuki Haga (5th - 1'37.542 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)

"It's pretty bumpy and that doesn't make our set-up easy to find on the first day so we will continue to work on our suspension, concentration on bump-absorption. No problems really, just fine-tuning. Top five is OK today but we will try some more tyres once we have dealt with the bumps. The new track layout in a couple of places is OK, but for me not so much has changed compared to last year."

Massimo Meregalli (Team Manager, Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)

"We are in a good position in the first day, both close to the top, and we are much better on the first day than we were at the start of the season, fighting each time. We are already there. We must be positive about all of it and we have reached a base setting that works everywhere. Even the set-up of each rider is quite similar, despite having very different riding styles. It is strange but it works for both of them."

-credit: yamaha-racing.com