After yesterday’s problems, Troy was hoping for an improvement in his fortunes today, but things didn’t go as he wanted. Although there were no mechanical issues today, Troy and the team struggled to improve the grip in the morning timed qualifying session sufficiently for Troy to lap fast enough to get into Superpole. Although the bike did improve in the afternoon (untimed) session, Troy was forced to sit out Superpole and watch the action from his pitbox instead. Series leader Carlos Checa (Ducati) won Superpole - his fifth of the season - with Eugene Laverty (Yamaha) second, Max Biaggi (Aprilia) third and Marco Melandri (Yamaha) fourth.

Troy - 17th, 1:56.401

My time in the final qualifying session would’ve put me in the top ten but, at the end of the day, that’s irrelevant because I didn’t get into Superpole - and that was pretty frustrating. We had quite a few issues yesterday, so I was looking for a big improvement today, but I didn’t get what I was expecting in time to get into Superpole.

In the morning timed qualifying session, I just didn’t have sufficient grip to lap quickly enough. The rear felt a bit too soft, so the mechanics stiffened up and it felt better, but by then it was too little too late.  Basically, I don’t think we made the steps needed in the time required and that’s why I didn’t make Superpole. The good news is that I have a pretty reasonable race set-up and my lap times in the afternoon session were competitive.

It’s going to be a very hard day tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to starting from the fifth row of the grid. Normally I make pretty good starts and can usually make up a row or two, but even if I make the best starts of my life, I’m still probably not going to be in the top six or so going into turn one. It’s difficult to pass in the first four or so corners and it’s very easy to get held up. Charging though the field after that is going to be very hard and doing that makes the tyres wear out more quickly, so it’s certainly going to be an interesting day for me. At the moment, I am thinking of a good top ten finish, but obviously I’d like the chance to do better. We’ll have to see what happens tomorrow, but if it rains then everything changes. That would be a whole new ball game, but it might be better for me.

See ya,

Troy