Paul Carruthers | May 3, 2003
Yamaha’s Stefan Everts qualified on pole position for tomorrow’s Grand Prix of Europe in Teutschenthal, Germany, the Belgian ending up half a second quicker than defending World Champion Mickael Pichon, the man who has won the opening two rounds of the series.
“I gave all I had to take pole today but Teutschenthal is a hard circuit to make a perfect lap,” Pichon said in a team press release. “I don’t like being second, even in the chrono. This afternoon was more or less an identical situation as two years ago when [Frederic] Bolley was a bit faster than me and I could not beat him; however I won the race so I will be happy if the weekend works out the same way. I will try not to think about last year. The start is difficult here, but I will not make the same mistake.”
Honda’s Brian Jorgensen ended the day third, just ahead of Yamaha’s Claudio Federici and KTM’s Joel Smets.
Qualifying
1. Stefan Everts (Yamaha) 1:56.148
2. Mickael Pichon (Suzuki) 1:56.605
3. Brian Jorgensen (Honda) 1:56.723
4. Claudio Federici (Yamaha) 1:56.758
5. Joel Smets (KTM) 1:57.092
6. Kenneth Gundersen (Kawasaki) 1:57.096
7. Andrew McFarlane (Kawasaki) 1:57.277
8. James Dobb (KTM) 1:57.665
9. Manuel Monni (Honda) 1:58.117
10. Patrick Caps (Honda) 1:58.123
Paul Carruthers | Editor
Paul Carruthers took over as the editor of Cycle News in 1993 after serving as associate editor since starting his career at the publication in 1985. Carruthers has covered every facet of the sport in his near-28-year tenure at America's Daily Motorcycle News Source.
