WORK TO BE DONE, BUT TIMES CLOSE.
Team Suzuki Alstare riders Leon Haslam and Sylvain Guintoli know that there's more to be done after they ended the first day of qualifying at Magny-Cours with the 10th and 14th quickest lap times. Leon's tenth place was just over three tenths of a second off pole and Sylvain is half a second adrift on a day that saw the top sixteen riders separated by lees than a second.
Italian Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati) set the day's quickest lap in qualifying, with a time of 1:38.856, with Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) second and Max Biaggi (Aprilia) third.
Leon - 10th, 1:39.238
It was just one of those close lap times days and really there's
all to play for tomorrow. Basically though, today was not so bad
and I am happy with the changes the team made from practice to
qualifying. We made some adjustments to the gearing and now we need
to work on some grip issues because that's where we were
suffering. We need some more time on softer tyres so that we can
work out which tyres we'll use for the races and we need to get
the right set-up. The times are close and really there's only one
split where I'm losing time and that could even be just one
corner! So, if we can improve, we're going to be in the hunt for
sure.
Sylvain - 14th, 1:39.431
Today was quite good for a Friday, for me! Often my Fridays are not
so good and I spend the rest of the weekend playing catch-up, but
today was better than usual. I'm only half a second down on pole,
but fourteenth on the grid, so you can see that the times are very
close - just like they have been all year!
I've got some issues with rear grip, but sometimes that's to do with the track being a bit 'green' on the opening day. All season we've been having some problems with grip when the track is 'green' and hasn't got much rubber down. Tomorrow, we'll try a few different things on both bikes and see if we can find some more rear grip and what works best.
-source: suzuki alstare
