World Supersport. Portimao. Saturday
World Supersport Championship
Round 12
Portimao 20-23 September 2012
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 22.TH
It was hard it was difficult but we did it. We were in trouble yesterday evening. There were so many things not working in the right direction. The setting, the gear, the rider feeling...
The ambient was really “electrical” in the box. More or less the same situation we had two weeks ago in Nurburgring after the first qualifying...
We had two possibilities on how to solve the problem: make a setting revolution, with all the risk it means, or believe in our previous work and try to solve the big feeling problems for Vladimir’s bike with a calm and accurate refining of what we were sure it worked in the past. And analyzing information of the data in the computer we followed the second direction.
We understood that the most of the problems where coming from the soft tyre used for the fast laps in qualifying and not from the bike. During the Saturday free practices we organized the work to make sure and confirm that idea and in addition saving the hard tyres for qualifying. And at the end of free practice we turned to smile. Ok, the laptime was not at top, 11.th position, but we knew from the data that we were right... Some little changes in suspensions setting, put a new gear and use a hard tyre and... first qualifying lap of the afternoon in 1’45”999, yes - 1,5 second faster than yesterday and second position immediately conquered! Wonderful.
For all 45 minutes of the session that time resisted to many competitors attacks, and 15 minutes to go we were still in the first row!
8 minutes to go we put one more tyre to try to do better. There were about two laps for Valdimir to try to attack the pole (Yes, for the first time in this season, the feeling into the box was such that we could even be on the pole this time!). The first lap was lost due to the traffic, the second was... 0,037 to the pole at the first split. Yes, maybe not pole, but for sure first row... but then Vladimir crashed at turn five and our first row dreams finished.
No problem, it is easy to crash when you go for the pole position. We are already happy to show that today we were there with the fastest riders. Look at the times: 1’45”408 the Parkes pole position, less than 6 tenth of second to us. Six position and ready for the race as a protagonist again.
And if the Valdimir’s side of the box is smiling, the same we can say about the Sergey’s side. Again faster than the last session, he was able to overcome a technical problem in the middle of the session: a broken speed sensor support leaved him without engine brake strategy for many laps. We fixed the problem at the first tyres change, and he went again for a very good 1’48”7 that mean 28.th position. And for tomorrow you all can expect Sergey able to ride in 1’47” as we do prepare some setting changes for him to test in the morning warm-up.
VLADIMIR LEONOV
“Finally a good feeling. I’m so sorry for the crash, this time we could really be in first row, and it would have been important for me and for the team, but in any case we are confident for a good race tomorrow. With the last set-up modification the bike is not as perfect as I would like, but as I can see, no other riders have a perfect bike for this circuit difficulties...”
SERGEY VLASOV
“I’m really happy. Being here is already a dream, and being here having such a result is even greater. I’m fighting with the circuit difficulties step by step, and as I became faster, the fight becomes more difficult. Still I do not have a lap same to the others, in many point I still have to fix line and references, but what is important is that the bike’s response is always stable and make me confident do to it better and better.
I’m sure Sunday evening we will be even more happy about our week-end”.