Ayrton and Christian closing the gap

Team Bimota Alstare riders Ayrton Badovini and Christian Iddon continued their superb progress with the new Bimota BB3, finishing final practice and Superpole with the 14th and 16th fastest lap times respectively. But the gap between them and their competitors is closing rapidly.

Ayrton’s best lap of 1:36.547 was just three tenths of a second slower than factory Aprilia rider Tony Elias in 10th place. Considering that this was only the second time Christian has been on a Superbike, he did very well to finish just two tenths of a second behind Ayrton.

Ayrton Badovini - 1:36.547 (14th overall, 3rd EVO class): “Today has been a pretty difficult day, mainly because of a front end problem, which was particularly noticeable in the last part of the track. But, as the day progressed, we improved the bike’s settings, step by step, and it was working much better towards the end. I know that we will improve tomorrow and I am looking forward to the races a lot. I think I could’ve gone faster in Superpole 1, but I lost the line a little on my qualifying tyre and that was enough to prevent me from getting into Superpole 2.”

Christian Iddon - 1:36.772 (16th overall, 5th EVO class): “We tried a lot of different things today and a lot of different settings and we have a good base level - base 1. So now we will try and improve on that and get the next base set-up. We found a lot of things that didn’t work, which is good because we can discard those ideas and work on what we feel will work better. The conditions weren’t great today, but I think we have made a big improvement from Aragon. Today was only my second time using a qualifying tyre and I am having to learn what they are about and how I can exploit them. I’m only a few tenths off tenth place, so I’m pretty happy really.”

Team Bimota Alstare