Valencia: Ducati Saturday notes

HAGA AND FABRIZIO TO LINE UP TOGETHER IN THIRD AND FOURTH PLACE ON TOMORROW'S GRID IN VALENCIA

Valencia (Spain), Saturday 4th April: the Ducati Xerox Team enjoyed warm and sunny conditions at the Ricardo Tormo circuit today and were more than satisfied with the results of a closely-contested Superpole, in which Ducati men Noriyuki Haga and Michel Fabrizio registered the third and fourth fastest lap times and thus confirmed their front row positions for tomorrow's races.

In the second qualifying session that took place this morning Michel improved slightly on the fastest time he had set yesterday while Noriyuki, although lapping consistently fast once again, could not quite get under the 1m35 barrier that he was able to break yesterday. The first eleven riders concluded second qualifying within two tenths of a second of each other.

The Superpole sessions passed without any particular drama for the factory Ducati squad, the two riders qualifying comfortably for the second and third mini-Superpoles. Although unable to match the pace of Yamaha's Ben Spies and privateer Ducati rider R0x00e9gis Laconi, both Noriyuki and Michel are content to be starting from the front of the pack tomorrow.

Noriyuki Haga 1m34.0s
"I am very happy to be on the front row. Yesterday we had already identified a good setting to use for the races and so I was pretty calm as the important thing for me was to be in the top four today. I feel that we have a good package with the 1198 here at Valencia. Although I preferred the old Superpole format because it was simpler and came down to one fast lap, I guess we are making this new format work for us too. I'm looking forward to trying to win two races here tomorrow."

Michel Fabrizio 1m34.2s
"I'm happy with today's result. After the first two rounds in which I didn't do as well as I hope, I'm happy that we've got back on the right road here. I feel as comfortable as I did in winter testing during which I was going really well. We've got the race pace and tomorrow I hope we can be up front and fighting to get ahead of Yamaha."

-credit: ducati