Lack of track knowledge and incredible temperatures in the Italian sunshine didn’t stop Yamaha World Supersport rider Cal Crutchlow from conquering the Misano circuit on his first session today. Having never ridden here before it was an impressive turn out for Crutchlow who was within two tenths of a second of the lap record of 1’39.398 set by Broc Parkes last year.
Team-mate Fabien Foret was also on good form, having worked on some front set up changes the Frenchman put in consistently fast laps to end the first free practice session of the weekend a respectable fifth on the time sheet, less than a second off his team-mate.
Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha World Supersport Team (1st, 1’39.442)
“Today was good enough, my first time ever at Misano. I did six laps running around the track over the last couple of days and had a look at it. I’ve been watching it a bit on TV as well but that’s about it. It was a good first session. We were the fastest Supersport bike out there today and that’s good enough for me. Hopefully we’ll continue that over the weekend.”
Fabien Foret, Yamaha World Supersport Team (5th, 1’40.560)
“It was a good first day for me and I was happy with the bike by the end of the session. In the first half, before the session was red flagged for oil on the track I was not too happy with the front end but we made some changes and switched to a new tyre and it felt much better. I’m looking forward to starting again tomorrow and improving the set up even more for Sunday’s race.”
Wilco Zeelenberg, Yamaha World Supersport Team Manager
“It was an impressive first practice for Cal I have to say, he rode 28 laps and managed to be within one tenth of the lap record from last year and we’re happy with that. Everything feels ok on the bike, hopefully tomorrow we’ll have stable weather as I think it will be better for everybody. Fabien was also quite pleased with the bike, we tried a different front tyre which worked well, He started ok and we made some changes to the front end which improved a lot and he got even faster. We’re all looking forward to tomorrow with confidence.”
Free Practice Pos. Rider Manu. Nat. Total Time 1 Cal Crutchlow Yamaha GBR 1'39.442 2 Joan Lascorz Kawasaki ESP 1'39.821 3 Kenan Sofuoglu Honda TUR 1'39.895 4 Eugene Laverty Honda GBR 1'40.355 5 Fabien Foret Yamaha FRA 1'40.560 6 Andrew Pitt Honda AUS 1'40.592 7 Mark Aitchison Honda AUS 1'40.673 8 Massimo Roccoli Honda ITA 1'40.676 9 Michele Pirro Yamaha ITA 1'40.981 10 Katsuaki Fujiwara Kawasaki JPN 1'40.984 11 Gianluca Nannelli Triumph ITA 1'41.190 12 Danilo Dell'omo Honda ITA 1'41.353 13 Anthony West Honda AUS 1'41.401 14 Doni Tata Pradita Yamaha IDN 1'41.485 15 Flavio Gentile Honda ITA 1'41.522 18 Alessandro Brannetti Yamaha ITA 1'41.580 29 Yannick Guerra Yamaha ESP 1'45.362
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