Kawasaki Racing: Houseboat ipod

Broc Parkes and Jamie Hacking each made it onto Superpole qualifying at Misano, but could not progress beyond Superpole One, after a weather-affected second day of practice.  After a first day of extreme heat and dry track surfaces, today’s action was conducted with occasional rain showers, and a fully wet second qualifying session welcomed the riders to the track this morning. That meant that Parkes and Hacking, and the entire top 20, qualified for Superpole due to their Friday practice times, even if they gained some valuable wet practice time today.

Going into Superpole Parkes was fifth fastest and looking strong for a close to pole. Hacking was 20th on day one, as the stand-in rider for team regular Makoto Tamada learned his way around the tricky Misano circuit.

After using race tyres early in the first 12-minute Superpole session Parkes and Hacking were out of time to improve their best laps on qualifying tyres, and thus were unable to continue their charge to challenge eventual Superpole winner Jakub Smrz.

Broc Parkes: “We had a good opening day and finished fifth in first qualifying but we have been struggling a bit with some things today. We didn’t really find a cure, and in Superpole I made a bit of a mistake on my qualifying tyre, ran wide on one corner, so I didn’t really get to put in my best lap. We started out on a race tyre and then went to a qualifying tyre. A lot of guys went better on their qualifying tyre in their second flying lap because on the first lap it maybe wasn’t giving full grip yet. This isn’t what we wanted after such a good start yesterday but tomorrow we will see what we can do for the race.”

Jamie Hacking: “We are still struggling a little bit in putting the racetrack together, and it didn’t help that everything has had to be rushed because of the changes in the weather. I have not had a chance to really concentrate on what I am doing with the bike. I have been behind a bit. The bike settings were coming together in the free practice before Superpole, and I was feeling more comfortable with the bike and my lines, but then I lost the front in turn three, so that didn’t do too much for my confidence. If I can calm down a little bit, and maybe we can hit the set-up just a little bit better, then things will be OK for us. It will be tough in the races to start from that far back, but as long as we put in some solid laps I think we will be OK.”