Crutchlow Leads Early In Misano
Cycle News Staff | June 25, 2010
Sterilgarda Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow knocked 1.7 seconds off his best lap from this morning to emerge as the fastest of the superbike men after the first time session at the Misano Circuit in Italy, the site of Sunday’s two World Superbike races.Crutchlow, who was seventh in this morning’s session, made big gains to end up at the top of the heap, the Brit lapping at 21:36.288 to barely best BMW’s Troy Corser, the Aussie who had led the morning session. Corser’s best this afternoon was a 1:36.344 – just .056 of a second off Crutchlow’s best.”I’m happy to be fastest at the end of the first day, I think we’ve made some good steps forward,” Crutchlow said in a team release. “The new corner is good, they’ve resurfaced it so it’s got good grip and the track itself is a lot cleaner than it was earlier on in the day in the free practice session. I think we’ve done a good enough job today, we matched the time we did in the test which is good. We tried a different chassis spec today, if we can continue the improvement with that then hopefully we’ll get better and better.”Leon Haslam rode the Alstare Suzuki to the third quickest time, just .077 of a second behind Crutchlow and only .02 of a second behind Corser as the top 10 were separated by .836 of a second.Fourth fastest today was Ducati Xerox’s Michel Fabrizio, the Italian besting Althea Ducati’s Carlos Checa and World Championship points leader Max Biaggi. Biaggi, though only sixth, was just a tick over half a second slower than Crutchlow.Althea Ducati’s Shane Byrne was next in seventh with Luca Scassa, Aprilia’s Leon Camier and Crutchlow’s factory Yamaha teammate James Toseland rounding out the top 10.Roger Lee Hayden, in his first visit to Misano, was 22nd today.
Friday Qualifying
1. Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha) 1:36.288
2. Troy Corser (BMW) 1:36.344
3. Leon Haslam (Suzuki) 1:36.365
4. Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) 1:36.549
5. Carlos Checa (Ducati) 1:36.761
6. Max Biaggi (Aprilia) 1:36.795
7. Shane Byrne (Ducati) 1:36.819
8. Luca Scassa (Ducati) 1:36.946
9. Leon Camier (Aprilia) 1:36.048
10. James Toseland (Yamaha) 1:37.12422. Roger Lee Hayden (Kawasaki) 1:39.078
