Honda World Superbike

Honda World Superbike Team riders Jonathan Rea and Hiroshi Aoyama both had a frustrating time in today’s opening qualifying session at the fourth round World Superbike championship event at Monza in Italy.

Rea posted the 11th fastest time after being quickest through the speed trap in this morning’s free practice session. Meanwhile, Aoyama, on his first visit to the high-speed Monza circuit, ended the day in 20th place.

Provisional pole position was taken by local rider, Michel Fabrizio, as the rain that had been forecast for this afternoon and the rest of the weekend stayed away.

Jonathan Rea – P11, 1m43,410s

It seems that this morning’s top speed, when everyone got excited, was recorded in a braking zone, but because the bike is now really stable under braking, I’m able to brake later than some of the other guys. Right now, though, the bike is still a little slow. I’m sure we can find a few tenths here and there, but to race at the pace of the guys at the front for 19 laps is going to be quite difficult. We’ve some work to do tonight, for sure, but we’ll do that work and see where we can find some more speed. I think one area is definitely coming off the last corner, because the final sector is not my best, so we can probably improve both me and the bike there.

Hiroshi Aoyama – P20, 1m44.686s

It’s been a tough first day because in free practice this morning we had a technical problem with the gear shifter which made it very difficult when I was trying to learn the track as well. Also, near the end of the session, I missed a gear and crashed on the left corner of the first chicane, which cost me some important track time as well. We still had a problem shifting this afternoon so I am not so happy with my first day at Monza. I hope we can have some more dry time tomorrow to give me a chance to make it into Superpole, but we have some work to do as well.

Pieter Breddels – Technical Co-ordinator

We brought Jonathan’s Assen setting here to see where we were, because we made quite a change to the set-up at that last race. We’re definitely quite strong on the brakes, which is so important here, and we adjusted the balance of the bike a bit today, but that’s not quite right yet. We’re losing some time in the fast corners, so we’ll work on that this evening. For Hiroshi, we had some shifting problems and he had to learn the track as well. This afternoon, we fixed the problem a little, but he had to do more laps while we tried to find a better setting, so it wasn’t easy.