Vallelunga: Ducati qualifying report

BAYLISS ON POLE ONCE AGAIN FOR TOMORROW'S CRUCIAL RACES AT VALLELUNGA

Vallelunga (Italy), Saturday 22nd September 2008: Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) celebrated his seventh Superpole of the season, and the 25th of his Superbike career, in front of the Italian fans this afternoon at the Vallelunga circuit.

The two Ducati Xerox factory riders qualified for this afternoon's Superpole in first (Troy Bayliss) and third (Michel Fabrizio) place, with both completing a much more productive second qualifying session this morning, after the first wet session of yesterday.

In dry, sunny conditions and with a track temperature of around 35o.C, the riders were able to pick up their pace to record some very fast lap times during the Superpole session, with Bayliss just snatching pole position, ahead of the two factory Yamaha riders Corser and Haga. Michel Fabrizio meanwhile made a couple of small errors during his lap which left him in seventh position on the second row for tomorrow's race.

The two races taking place here tomorrow are all important for Australian rider Troy, who currently holds a 101-point advantage in the rider classification over second placed man Corser. Two very strong race results here tomorrow could be enough to award him with the world title, a title he has already taken on two occasions, in both 2001 and 2006.

Troy Bayliss 1m36.6s
"It's always nice to take a pole position, it's a great feeling and another one to add to my career total. I took pole here last year too but there was more wind this afternoon so that may have slowed us all down a little but it wasn't a problem really. My lap wasn't perfect but we did enough and so I'm very satisfied. I'm starting from the front row tomorrow, and as we've done a lot of pretty fast laps on the race tyres today I'm feeling confident for the races."

Michel Fabrizio 1m37.5s
"I'm disappointed that I wont be starting from the front row of the grid tomorrow; it's my home round and I hoped to do better in this afternoon's Superpole. I'm not sure what happened, I made a small mistake right at the start, on entering the first curve and so lost time in the first split due to that. Anyway, it seems that the race pace is there so I'm staying positive. I will start from seventh position and we'll see if I can take two good results tomorrow, for me, for my team and also for the fans."

-credit: ducati