Max Biaggi and
Ruben Xaus couldn't have got closer in first qualifying for the second World Superbike Championship meeting of the season at Phillip Island after the Sterilgarda Go Eleven Ducati pairin posted exactly the same time during the session.
Biaggi, who heads into the weekend lying second in the championship standings after his double podium in the season opener in Qatar, was unable to repeat his form from pre-season testing with less favourable track conditions meaning he had to settle for sixth place on the overnight grid, half a second behind pacesetter
Troy Corser.
"Today the grip was less than one month ago testing due to the night rain which washed the track," the Italian said. "I preferred to keep the settings from January testing because tomorrow the track is expected to be drier and have more grip, and I will have the opportunity to score good times as during the testing."
Team-mate Xaus came off twice during the day in tricky conditions following the rain overnight, but was able to post the same time as Biaggi of 1min 32.827secs by the time qualifying had drawn to a close.
"I'm pretty satisfied with my performance," he said. "I set an excellent time in spite of unfavourable track conditions. I'm sorry about the two slips, I was just trying to test two setting solutions but they were not good. I'm really confident for tomorrow when better track conditions are expected and we can improve our times."
With better conditions expected for second qualifying and Superpole, team manager Marco Borciani admitted he felt there was more to come from his riders on Saturday with the team having elected to work on race trim during the running so far.
"I'm sure tomorrow we will better our times," he said. "Today we worked on the bike in race trim to avoid changing the set-up from the winter testing. We already knew that just tomorrow's qualifying will settle the starting grid due to good weather conditions expected.
