Difficult Final Qualifying For Scuderia Triumph-SC

samedi 1 mars 2008

After securing a place in the top ten yesterday, McCoy continued to push hard and was able to reduce his lap time to 1m 36.354s, but due to the high level of competition in the World Supersport class, he actually dropped back seven places and will start Sunday’s 21 lap race in 17th position.

Italian Ilario Dionisi made the most of the final qualifying session to set a lap time just one second off his more experienced team-mate and move up to 27th on the grid for tomorrows race. Unfortunately the determined 24 year old was held up by other riders on his quick laps, which resulted him being denied a position higher up the grid..

Garry McCoy said: “To be honest I’m still a little lost to what happened in that session as I really struggled for grip. There was a little bit more wind and the temperature had gone up, but as soon as I cracked the throttle on the exit of the turns the rear just started sliding. I tried a different rear tyre but it was exactly the same. The frustrating thing is that it’s been working well in all the other sessions and I was confident of improving my time and position this afternoon. On the plus side I think our package generally works better in a race situation as opposed to pushing for a single fast lap so hopefully we’ll be able to have a better day tomorrow.”

Ilario Dionisi: “I feel happy with the bike, but the big problem I had today was getting a clear lap as there is a lot of riders out on track. The tyres for me are working OK and I have made my selection for the race. Now I need to focus on my start tomorrow because I am a long way back, but for sure I will be ‘full gas’ and will be giving it everything I’ve got.”

Team Manager Stefano Caracchi commented: “This morning everything worked well and we are still trying to understand exactly what happened this afternoon because we struggled for grip. In the test here in January we had 40 degree track temperatures and the grip was good. This morning the track was 22 degrees and everything was OK but this afternoon it was 38 degrees and our set-up did not work.”