World Superbike

Monza: Ducati Friday report

TOSELAND AND LACONI (DUCATI XEROX TEAM) BACK UP WITH THE FRONT-RUNNERS PACE IN FIRST QUALIFYING AT MONZA Monza (Italy), Friday 6 May: Both Ducati Xerox Team riders James Toseland and Regis Laconi were up amongst the front-runners in today's first ...

Published: May 7, 2005, 4:04 PM

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TOSELAND AND LACONI (DUCATI XEROX TEAM) BACK UP WITH THE FRONT-RUNNERS PACE IN FIRST QUALIFYING AT MONZA

Monza (Italy), Friday 6 May: Both Ducati Xerox Team riders James Toseland and Regis Laconi were up amongst the front-runners in today's first World Superbike qualifying session in warm and sunny conditions at Monza. This time it was the British rider ahead of his team-mate as Toseland finished fifth quickest behind Gianluca Nannelli (Ducati SC), while Frenchman Laconi was two places further down in seventh position.

Toseland was quite pleased with his form today after lapping in similar times to Laconi but was convinced he can improve with a bit more traction. "I obviously feel a bit better, it was a comfortable fifth place really although I feel there's a lot more to come" declared Toseland. "We've still got a few little problems with traction, especially coming off the Parabolica, which is a corner where you can lose or make up two or three tenths easily. We also need to alter the front forks slightly to give the tyre an easier time and gain more grip, but apart from that minor problem everything else is fine. We used a qualifier with 25 minutes left to go and that was my fastest time" he continued, "because I didn't want to risk running out of time again like in Valencia. Our set-up is better organised this weekend, we put the qualifier on earlier and things seem to be working out really well. Circumstances have made things look bad since the start of the year, but it's not the case and we're not far away from the other guys. I know where we are exactly in comparison with the Suzukis and if I raced this afternoon I know we could hang in there".

Regis was not entirely happy with his seventh quickest time, citing a lack of grip for his position in the first session. "I am not that pleased with my position because we are missing grip both at the front and at the rear when the conditions start to heat up. We tried a number of solutions but for the moment we haven't improved much. Then with my qualifying tyre there were yellow flags at the second chicane and I lost a lot of time. We really must improve in the final split because we are just too slow there. In particular in the Lesmo curve where the bike doesn't want to go where I want it to go. Together with my engineers we'll have a good look at the problem and tomorrow I'm sure we'll improve. I'm also a bit tired because it's the first time I'm racing since my crash at Valencia. That's normal and I'm sure we'll go much better tomorrow."

-www.ducati.com

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