Troy Bayliss aboard his Xerox Ducati powered back to the front positions at Phillip Island with his 13th career Superpole win.
The two-times world champion, was out of contention last Saturday in Qatar, but showed that he really means business this weekend by first breaking the circuit's best lap in the morning's final qualifying session, leaving the new record at 1min 31.887sec, and then outpacing
James Toseland and
Troy Corser during Superpole.
"We've come quite good in the last couple of days, trying long-runs and working hard to try and find the race tyre, but everyone knows how Phillip Island is" declared Bayliss.
The weather on Phillip Island can be very changeable and that is what the riders were up against during their Superpole lap, "Conditions can be very different during the day, hot and cold, wet and dry and it was very gusty this afternoon for Superpole. I thought the wind had died down but it was still blowing hard on the inside of turn 1 as I set off,” said Bayliss.
“My lap was actually quite messy and I was surprised to take Superpole, my last split can't have been that bad because I was down at the first one," he admitted, "I also ran very wide on Lukey Heights but really I can't complain and I'm very happy to be on pole in front of my friends and family. Both the races are going to be long and difficult tomorrow and we hope for cooler conditions which will help with the duration of the tyres."
Meanwhile, team-mate
Lorenzo Lanzi was not so fortunate, the Italian had qualified in fifth place but suffered a problem with the electronic quick-shifter in Superpole, which dropped him down to tenth.
"I wanted to do a good Superpole lap because starting up front is always important but unfortunately we had a problem with the electronic shifter so I will be starting from tenth on the grid on the third row" commented Lanzi.
