The first Superpole session of the 2007 World Superbike championship didn't work out quite how the Ducati Xerox Team had hoped at the Losail circuit in Qatar.
Reigning World Champion
Troy Bayliss came home in sixth place with his young team-mate
Lorenzo Lanzi ahead of him in fifth place.
When Ducati tested at Qatar they were on the money however even with the same settings from that test the times didn't come in.
“It's really strange because the last test I did here I did a 58.1 and now the best I've done all weekend has been a 59.5 with exactly the same setting from last time,” explained a bemused Bayliss, “We're just having some difficulty in getting comfortable on the bike, my Superpole lap didn't feel good and it just didn't happen.”
As ever Bayliss is putting the result behind him and looking ahead to race day when it really counts, “That's it really, now we put it behind us and hopefully we can do a good race tomorrow. We knew it was going to be a hard weekend but it's just looking a bit harder than normal. Honestly my long run is the only good thing I've done this weekend, 10 laps in 1m59s, so that's a good sign and I'm feeling pretty confident that I will be OK in the second part of the race," he finished.
Lanzi who has been on form was also disappointed not to be on the front row saying, “I really hoped to get on the front row of the grid because all weekend I've always been in the top 4 and it was important for the start."
"Now Troy and I are both on the second row, we have to hope for a good start and do the first few laps well. We're pretty clear on the choice of tyres, we'll just have to see how they work tomorrow and what sort of weather conditions there are because the cooler it is the better it is for us,” explained Lanzi. The desert circuit can experience very high temperatures so tyre choice especially for race two will be paramount.
