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.”
Free Practice- Results
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
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