Front row start for laverty in World Supersport Championship
04/10/2009 08:12:36

Front row puts Laverty in contention

PARKALGAR HONDA’S Eugene Laverty will be fighting for the win in tomorrow’s 13th round of the World Supersport Championship at Magny Cours in France after taking fourth on the front row of the grid and posting lap times similar to all the top riders.

Miguel Praia will start from 13th on the fourth row, matching his qualification position from Imola one week ago when he scored his best ever result of ninth. Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow took pole position right at the end of the session. The racing starts at 1325CET on Sunday, October 4th and can be viewed on Eurosport or www.worldsbk.com.

Eugene: “That was a good session ending in a front row – it was another step forward in lap times. I have a strange sensation with the front of my Parkalgar Honda when braking and entering corners which I have never felt before, so Brains (Mark Woodage – Chief Technician) is looking at the data now to see if we can sort that - but overall I am happy to be honest. We found a big step forward by softening the front end and I think we can run in the 1min41secs barrier. We are looking for another step forward to run at low 1min41secs in the race. I am not feeling much pressure, that was last weekend when I needed to peg Cal. Now I think there is a lot of pressure on Cal not to lose the Championship.”

Miguel: “My qualifying lap time was done early in the session and at the time was good for eighth or ninth. It wasn’t nice to drop to 13th but we are only 0.4secs from the second row which shows how close everything is, there is really nothing in it. I am a little disappointed for my crew, they deserved better than this after all the hard work they put in sorting my set-up problems from yesterday. We need a good start in the race – the same as Imola and see how far up the results we can climb.”

Simon Buckmaster, Parkalgar Honda Team Manager: “It took a little while for Eugene to get going but when he did he made rapid progress and at the end was right on the pace. He can build on this and has the speed to run at the front and keep the pressure on Cal – we can’t be beaten for second in the Championship but have the title to gain while Cal has it all to lose. It was a good qualifying session from Miguel and he was helped by Eugene towing him round a bit. He has a good chance of another top 10 finish given his lap times and he wants to improve on his result from last week.”

Qualifying

1 Crutchlow C. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R6 1'40.980

2 Lascorz J. (ESP) Kawasaki ZX-6R 1'41.146

3 Sofuoglu K. (TUR) Honda CBR600RR 1'41.253

4 Laverty E. (IRL) PARKALGAR HONDA CBR600RR 1'41.562

5 Pirro M. (ITA) Yamaha YZF R6 1'41.720

6 Foret F. (FRA) Yamaha YZF R6 1'41.943

7 Fujiwara K. (JPN) Kawasaki ZX-6R 1'41.956

8 Aitchison M. (AUS) Honda CBR600RR 1'42.136

9 Pitt A. (AUS) Honda CBR600RR 1'42.176

10 McCoy G. (AUS) Triumph Daytona 675 1'42.265

13 Praia M. (POR) PARKALGAR HONDA CBR600RR 1'42.580