Sykes Starts From Row Three After Slick Superpole

2010-07-10 21:03
Tom Sykes and Chris Vermeulen both reached the Superpole qualifying session, with Tom eventually taking his Kawasaki Racing Team Ninja ZX-10R to 12th place on the grid. Chris was 18th.

The 5.403km Brno circuit was drenched in summer sunshine and with track temperatures almost at 60°C Superpole was a hot and difficult business. It was a business that the team and Sykes approached with a plan that worked well, allowing Tom to use his alloted tyres to the absolute maximum.

Tom made it through Superpole 1 and into Superpole 2, his 12th position putting him on the third row. There is no shortage of potential passing places at this circuit laden with fast chicanes, offering opportunities to move up in the early laps.

Chris could not get the ultimate edge grip he desired to push hard in qualifying, and is now looking at taking a good start and using the nature of the track to help him gain places and points on raceday. He knows the circuit well from his recent MotoGP experiences and starting from the fifth row means he will need to make up places early to go forward in the final rankings.

Tom Sykes: “We had been struggling for a while with the balance of the bike but we certainly found a better direction this afternoon. We made a couple of small changes in Superpole and we managed to dig deep and find a decent time on the qualifying tyre. Come tomorrow we have some good information to base our set-up on and we'll try some more things in the morning warm-up. We want to find some consistency for the races to hopefully be up there. We want two good results tomorrow so I need to get away cleanly and stick with the front group.”

Chris Vermeulen: “On day one we had reasonable pace and were closer to the front than we had been but we just haven’t improved as we expected to today. We tried a few things but we struggled with edge grip. I know a lot of other riders are in the same position but it seems to be affecting me a bit more than most. We will try something else new tomorrow in warm-up. We have a new front tyre here, from the test we did in Imola last week, and maybe we will use that in the race. But we still have to make the final decision.”

Source: Kawasaki Racing Team

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