FABRIZIO ON 4TH ROW AT MILLER WSBK

2011-05-29 17:10
Team Alstare Suzuki's Michel Fabrizio was unable to master the tricky conditions in Superpole today at Miller Motorsports Park in Salt Lake City and will have to start tomorrow's 21-lap races from the fourth row of the grid.

Yesterday's rain continued unabated and practice, qualifying and all three Superpole sessions at the American venue in Utah took place on a soaking-wet track. As this was only the second time that Fabrizio had ridden the GSX-R1000 Suzuki in the wet, he was cautious and preferred to try and find a good wet set-up than push harder and risk crashing.

Spaniard Carlos Checa (Ducati) continued to dominate proceedings today, though he had to work hard in final Superpole in order to secure his fourth Pole of the season. Second was fellow Ducati-mounted Jakub Smrz with the Yamaha pairing of Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty third and fourth.

Michel Fabrizio - 15th, 1:2:03.397:

"I am disappointed not to have got into Superpole 2, but I am not feeling fully-confident with my bike in the wet. I am not happy to be on the fourth row of the grid because I will have a lot of work to do tomorrow if I am to have any chance of good results.

"This is only my second time on this bike in the rain and I had to learn a lot in a very short time. We need to improve the bike's wet set-up and then I think my confidence in it will grow. At the moment, my confidence in the wet is not so good and I just need more time in these kind of conditions.

"Turn One is a long way from the start line, so I need to make good starts and be in the lead group. If that doesn't happen, it's easy to lose a couple of seconds in the next section of the track and then it will be very hard to catch up. So, I am hoping for good starts, but more than that, I am hoping that it will be dry tomorrow!"

Final Qualifying & Superpole: 1 Carlos Checa (ESP-Ducati) 1:58.315, 2 Jakub Smrz (CZE-Ducati) 1:58.390, 3 Marco Melandri (ITA-Yamaha) 1:58.609, 4 Eugene Laverty (GBR-Yamaha) 1:58.860, 5 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA-Ducati) 1:59.069, 6 Troy Corser (AUS-BMW) 1:59.262. 15 Michel Fabrizio (ITA-Alstare Suzuki) 2:03.397.

Source: Team Suzuki Press Office

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