Sykes shines in Monza

Yamaha World Superbike rider Tom Sykes gave a tantalizing glimpse of his race pace today in the first qualifying session at the historic Monza circuit. The British rider put in strong consistent fats laps for the duration of the session, ending it in second place, just over 0.3 seconds behind leader Michele Fabrizio. Sykes had been fast all day and had spent the morning and the qualifying session fine tuning the set up for the weekend's racing. He finished the morning 's free practice session in third place, just behind his team-mate. Ben Spies was in equally reliable form in the Italian sunshine, focusing on tyre wear and race pace he ran consistent laps all day, finishing the afternoon's qualifying session in seventh position, less than 0.3 of a second off Sykes. The American rider spent the entire qualifying session on a single set of tyres to test the wear rate on the warm circuit. The morning's free practice session saw Spies predictably fast on a circuit he's coming to know well through testing, he finished the session second, less than 0.3 seconds behind the leader. Tom Sykes, Yamaha World Superbike Team (2nd, 1'45.758) "A fairly decent day to day to be honest, we came here with a big change from the test we had here which has taken a fair bit of balancing but I think we've done it. Overall I'm very happy with my race tyres, we're doing consistent fast laps over race distance so I'm confident in the team's ability and tomorrow I think we'll come out even stronger. I'm going to have a good sleep tonight and come back tomorrow with a fresh head and be even better!" Ben Spies, Yamaha World Superbike Team (7th, 1'46.013) "It was a really good session for us. We pretty much found our race tyres , we only ran one set for the whole session and put in some really good lap times. We weren't really worried about fast lap times today, we just wanted to get consistent laps so we should be good for Sunday. It's an 18 lap race and our fastest lap today was the 22nd one so it's looking good. The bike's working really well so we'll step it up tomorrow and see what happens." Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha World Superbike Team Manager "A good session for us, we were working to find the best set up for the race I think we're pretty ready. We've made no major changes from the previous test here, just some small changes to improve and fine tune. The race pace was good so we're satisfied, I think we are 90% there for Sunday." Circuit Length: 5792 Lap Record: 1'47.434 (Troy Bayliss, 01/01/2002) Fastest Lap Ever: 1'44.931 (Troy Bayliss, 11/05/2008) Last Years Winner: Noriyuki Haga 2009 WSB Italy - Monza 08/05/2009 Qualifying 1 Pos.     Rider     Manu.     Nat.     Total Time 1     Michel Fabrizio     Ducati     ITA     1'45.447 2     Tom Sykes     Yamaha     GBR     1'45.758 3     Noriyuki Haga     Ducati     JPN     1'45.790 4     Jonathan Rea     Honda     GBR     1'45.919 5     Max Neukirchner     Suzuki     GER     1'45.962 6     Yukio Kagayama     Suzuki     JPN     1'45.985 7     Ben Spies     Yamaha     USA     1'46.013 8     Max Biaggi     Aprilia     ITA     1'46.054 9     Carlos Checa     Honda     ESP     1'46.140 10     Shane Byrne     Ducati     GBR     1'46.164 11     Ryuichi Kiyonari     Honda     JPN     1'46.171 12     Leon Haslam     Honda     GBR     1'46.208 13     Jakub Smrz     Ducati     CZE     1'46.363 14     Ruben Xaus     BMW     ESP     1'46.545 15     Troy Corser     BMW     AUS     1'46.565 27     David Checa     Yamaha     ESP     1'48.920 FREE PRACTICE REPORT     08/05/2009 Crutchlow and Foret get straight down to it in Monza Both Cal Crutchlow and Fabien Foret got down to business quickly in Monza today. Crutchlow used the free practice session to familiarize himself with yet another new circuit, something he managed to do in just a few laps as his searingly quick pace showed at the end of the session. A small tumble early in the session did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm. His last lap of the day turning out to be the fastest of the Supersport riders, sending a clear message to his competitors that he means business on Sunday. Team-mate Foret was well and truly back on form, having picked up his pace dramatically in Assen and showed his old racing style, he got down to it quickly in Monza today and put in consistently fast laps at the top of the pack, leading the session briefly before settling for fourth at the end, less than 0.5 of a second off his team-mate. Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha World Supersport Team (1st, 1'50.594) "It was good enough for me over the session, but I had a little bit of an off which I'm disappointed about. Every time I stick new boots on I crash! We worked hard this afternoon and done a lot of laps in the session. The race distance was good on the tyres so I'm happy enough, hopefully we can go into the weekend confident now. The second corner is weird, it's absolutely flat out, you don't shut off at all on a 600 and it took a bit of getting used to, there's barrier all the way round and it kind of suck s you in! It's nice to be quickest on the last lap and on one set of tyres, let's hope we can keep that up over the weekend." Fabien Foret, Yamaha World Supersport Team (4th, 1'50.934) "It was good for me, I found my pace pretty easily, I used a very similar bike set-up to last year which was very good. Obviously we tried to update it a bit but right now it's working really well and I'm not pushing 100% yet so I would say everything is under control and good up to now. I enjoyed being out there on the bike and having fun on the track today, . I'm pretty happy and looking forward to tomorrow." Wilco Zeelenberg, Yamaha World Supersport Team Manager "It seems to be that Cal likes the track, not bad for his first time here and on provisional pole. Both the riders are happy, Fabien particularly likes this track. They both tried some different things in the session, including an Assen setting and the Monza setting from last year. We have a good direction as a result of the session, we've got a good combination of tyres which we didn't have last year so everything seems to be under control! Cal had a little off, he started with a tyre which was probably not the best and had a small front end slide. The problem here is that anything is a high speed incident but he's ok, no injuries so we're looking forward to tomorrow with confidence." Circuit Length: 5792 Lap Record: 1'52.635 (Chris Vermeulen, 01/01/2003) Fastest Lap Ever: 1'49.868 (Broc Parkes, 11/05/2008) Last Years Winner: Fabien Foret 2009 WSS Italy - Monza 08/05/2009 Free Practice Pos.     Rider     Manu.     Nat.     Total Time 1     Cal Crutchlow     Yamaha     GBR     1'50.594 2     Joan Lascorz     Kawasaki     ESP     1'50.605 3     Mark Aitchison     Honda     AUS     1'50.749 4     Fabien Foret     Yamaha     FRA     1'50.934 5     Matthieu Lagrive     Honda     FRA     1'51.474 6     Danilo Dell'omo     Honda     ITA     1'51.783 7     Katsuaki Fujiwara     Kawasaki     JPN     1'51.860 8     Andrew Pitt     Honda     AUS     1'51.920 9     Kenan Sofuoglu     Honda     TUR     1'51.929 10     Michele Pirro     Yamaha     ITA     1'51.939 11     Eugene Laverty     Honda     GBR     1'52.027 12     Massimo Roccoli     Honda     ITA     1'52.073 13     Franco Battaini     Yamaha     ITA     1'52.122 14     Garry McCoy     Triumph     AUS     1'52.154 15     Gianluca Vizziello     Honda     ITA     1'52.383 24     Doni Tata Pradita     Yamaha     IDN     1'54.392 26     Yannick Guerra     Yamaha     ESP     1'54.957 29     Jose Morillas     Yamaha     ESP     1'57.147