BMW Motorrad:

The first day of practice and qualifying at Misano today saw Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport return to the kind of form they showed before the flyaways in South Africa and USA. Despite some problems still with his right shoulder, Troy Corser managed a top ten place in today’s qualifying session, less than half a second slower then provisional pole man Michel Fabrizio (Ducati). Ruben Xaus finished the day 14th quickest, but is only two tenths of a second slower than Troy, so both riders are on the pace despite the competitiveness of the qualifying.

Troy – 10th, 1:37.503
The bike is feeling a bit more normal here and that’s good because I had expected it to be a bit of a handful on the bumps. Now I can feel the bike actually moving whereas before everything was moving a bit too quickly and it was hard to understand exactly what was going on and what to do to improve. I found it relatively easy to do the times today and it was easier to open the throttle more quickly exiting the turns. My shoulder is about 80%, but it’s getting better and shouldn’t be too much of a problem on the bike. The weather forecast is for rain, but I really hope that doesn’t happen because this track is very, very slippery in the wet.

Ruben – 14th, 1:37.773
I have been racing for many years, but sometimes I find it hard to completely understand what’s happening on the bike. That’s me being honest! Here we’ve managed to find some grip by changing the wheelbase when we changed the rear sprocket and I was able to go faster straightaway. This bike has so many possibilities we haven’t found yet and so it’s easy to get a bit lost sometimes. I’m happy because my lap time is close to Troy and the top ten and that’s good considering how competitive the field is.

Berti Hauser (BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director)
Today was an exciting day and a great way to get over our darkest moments in South Africa and USA. Today our systems were working well and our riders were able to feel the changes made to the bikes and I think we made good progress. We have a better understanding of the complexity of this bike, but we will continue to make more and more improvements. The engineers and the riders are working together superbly and it’s great to start this weekend on a good and positive note.download Pretty Woman dvd