Double world champion
Troy Bayliss rammed the point home again, as if he needed to, that he is going to be a hard man to beat in the two World Superbike races from Assen tomorrow.
The Xerox Ducati rider was suprisingly beaten into third place in Saturday's qualifying session, behind
Ruben Xaus and Assen sensation Jakub Smrz, as Ducati's finished the session filling the top four places.
In the free session preceding Superpole, the veteran Aussie bolted on a super sticky qualifying tyre and trounced his rivals by over half a second.
In the main Superpole session Bayliss strung together a superb lap to not quite match that earlier practice time but still beat
Noriyuki Haga by a tenth, and will start clear favourite for a double.
Haga for his part, broke up the Ducati domination seen earlier in the day and his lap was very controlled. The Japanese, who suffered a front end crash yesterday is the only rider to ever win a race at Assen on a Yamaha, but that was back in the days when the class was running 750cc bikes.
Third place for Ruben Xaus and the lanky Spaniard, who has won at Assen in the past, completed more laps than anyone in the qualifying sessions, looking for race setup. With team mate Max Biaggi stuggling here Xaus is the best bet for a Sterilgarda podium it seems.
One man who did pull out a special lap was
Troy Corser. But that should not be a surprise to anyone as Corser is a master of the one lap qualifying format and as usual left his attack until late in the lap to secure a front row starting position on teh Santander Yamaha.
Fifth went to Max Neukirchner on the Alstare Suzuki, the German, cheered on by many visiting German fans, seemingly suffering no ill effects from the clash with
Carlos Checa in the previous round in Valencia.
Checa himself is a solid sixth, this pair starting alongside each other on the grid could make things intereting in the early stages. Checa should be quick here though as he has plenty of experience from
MotoGP on the recently revised van Drenthe circuit.
