Yamaha Sterilgarda riders Cal Crutchlow and James Toseland completed the first qualifying session at the Imola circuit today battling the cooler temperatures and bumpy circuit as they worked on their set ups in advance of Sunday’s two races. The qualifying session was hampered towards the end as rain started to fall, preventing both riders from setting their hot laps of the session.

Crutchlow had started the session well and was the first rider to break into the 1.48s, spending part of the session with his R1 as the only four cylinder machine in the top six. Team mate Toseland improved on his morning practice time by over 0.7 of a second. The two-time World Champion switched to fresh tyres at the end of the qualifying session but was unable to make use of them as rain prevented any attempts at improving on the lap times.

Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team (7th, 1’48.813)
“It wasn’t too bad today, my ideal time was second position, and I got held up on my fast laps at the end of the session which didn’t help. It’s going to be a bit of a gamble over the weekend with tyre choices, when we tested here back in July we were 1.4 seconds quicker than we are now and that was with a hotter track temperature. Now the same tyre isn’t working as well with the cooler conditions so we’ll have to look at other ways. It looks like the Ducatis’ have an advantage in these conditions so we’ll have to see what we can come up with overnight. Overall I know we can be faster so we’ll see tomorrow.”

James Toseland, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team (12th, 1’49.528)
“Not the greatest day today, we had a few issues to resolve this morning so I missed some of the practice before I could get going. This afternoon wasn’t so bad, the times weren’t too far off but we’ve got some work to do to get up to pace. The weather didn’t help; it just started to rain at the end when I had a new tyre so I couldn’t get a good lap in. We’ll have a good think this evening and come back in the morning.”

Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team Manager
“As a first day the results were not so bad. For sure we will work to understand where we can improve the set ups for both James and Cal’s bikes and after that we will make some changes in order to start the first session tomorrow with a faster pace. It was a shame that Cal got held up at the end of the session by other riders, and the rain ensured we couldn’t lay down any fast laps at the end.”