Engine mishap hampers Biaggi.
The Marlboro Yamaha Team had a tough final day of qualifying at Welkom this afternoon, with lone rider Max Biaggi making the second row in parching heat at Welkom.
Biaggi is riding alone here after team-mate Carlos Checa was advised to stay home in Spain while he recovers from a recent fall. Checa crashed his YZ Supermotard machine at his local track outside Barcelona last Thursday, bruising a kidney. He has been in hospital since then but was discharged this morning. In his absence Biaggi hasn't had the easiest of times.
The Marlboro Yamaha Team had a tough final day of qualifying at Welkom this afternoon, with lone rider Max Biaggi making the second row in parching heat at Welkom.
Biaggi is riding alone here after team-mate Carlos Checa was advised to stay home in Spain while he recovers from a recent fall. Checa crashed his YZ Supermotard machine at his local track outside Barcelona last Thursday, bruising a kidney. He has been in hospital since then but was discharged this morning. In his absence Biaggi hasn't had the easiest of times.
The Italian clocked the eighth best time this afternoon and believes he would've been able to go for a front-row start if his Marlboro Yamaha Team YZR500 hadn't encountered a minor engine mishap in the closing stages.
"We had an engine problem in the last 20 minutes of the session," explained Biaggi, who had been tenth yesterday. "The engine had been good earlier on but then it lost some power. Of course I'm not too happy about what happened but it's better today than tomorrow.
"For sure I could've made the front row if we hadn't had the problem. I was happiest with my number one bike, which is the one that lost some power, and if we can solve the problem I feel confident that I can go well in the race. We still have some chatter but not as bad as we had yesterday."
"We improved the chassis today but Max ran into some kind of small engine problem when he went out the last but one time," added Marlboro Yamaha Team director Hiroya Atsumi. "We changed some parts for his last run but the bike wasn't accelerating as it should. It's disappointing but I don't think it should be a problem for tomorrow's race.
"The chassis is better than yesterday, we have eliminated most of the chatter, and we have a good overall chassis set-up and tyre choice. Also, of course, we've been doing a lot of work on the engine because of the high altitude here. The air is thinner which costs everyone a lot of horsepower, so we've been working at minimising the effects by adjusting compression via different cylinder head volumes and by changing carburettor settings."
Tomorrow Yamaha defends a 100 per cent win record at Welkom; Biaggi won the inaugural GP here in 1999 while fellow YZR man Garry McCoy won last year.
