The opening day of action at Monza’s Superbike World Championship round belonged to Britain’s Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha Sterilgarda), who confirmed his excellent qualifying form this year with provisional pole position, after topping the timesheets also in the morning’s free practice run.

The World Supersport champion set a time of 1:44.577 to go two-tenths faster than Assen double winner Jonathan Rea (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda), while third quickest time went to Michel Fabrizio on the Ducati Xerox 1098, who looked to be in fine form after his recent Misano test.

The BMW Motorrad team continued to make headway in qualifying with first Ruben Xaus and then Troy Corser both lying at the top of the timesheets for a while. In the end the Australian set the fourth time, ahead of points leader Leon Haslam (Suzuki Alstare).

Max Biaggi (Aprilia Alitalia), who had set an astonishing record top speed of close to 327km/h in FP1, finished seventh, while Jakub Smrz with the PATA client Ducati ended up in eighth. The last two top 10 positions went to James Toseland (Yamaha Sterilgarda) in ninth and Luca Scassa (Sueprsonic Ducati), who on the damp track had been as high as third.

Yoshimura WSB debut rider Daisaku Sakai had a tough baptism with the Monza track, earning himself a provisional nineteenth place together with a morning and an afternoon crash.

In Supersport, a fantastic lap of 1:48.303 seconds by Ireland’s Eugene Laverty (Parkalgar Honda) was enough to knock Triumph BE1 Racing’s David Salom off the top slot in the last few minutes of qualifying at Monza.

The Spanish rider has been looking competitive all day however and he was able to place his Triumph 675 machine in front of the Kawasakis of Joan Lascorz (Motocard.com) and Fabien Foret (Lorenzini). The third major championship contender Kenan Sofuoglu (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) was next up in fifth ahead of his Italian teammate Michele Pirro.

Ayrton Badovini (BMW) continues to lay down the law in Superstock 1000, as he notched up the quickest time in qualifying. The Italian was unable to get under the two-minute mark on the damp track, but he did end up over half-a-second quicker than Austrian Rene Mahr (Suzuki).

Third quickest was Andrea Antonelli (Honda). Davide Giugliano could only manage seventeenth quickest time as he was still in pain from a crash in the morning’s free practice session.

Federico D’Annunzio (Yamaha Martini Corse) set the quickest time of 1:52.232 in the first qualifying session for the European Superstock 600 race.

The young Italian was more than four-tenths quicker than one of the title chasers, Frenchman Florian Marino (Honda Ten Kate). Two Italian wild-cards, Riccardo Russo (Bike & Motor Yamaha) and Stefano Casalotti (Media Action Yamaha) showed good form as they notched up fifth and sixth quickest times respectively.

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SUPERBIKE RIDER QUOTES:
Cal Crutchlow: “It was nice to top the time sheets in both sessions today. We’re still looking for better grip a bit on the bike and also need to improve when pushing going into the corners, I think we can work on that. We tried a couple of things today which is good and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. It’s great that it’s the team’s home race and we’ll have lots of fans here and Yamaha guests so it’s nice to be on top today for them.”

James Toseland: “It was one of those sessions today where it starts wet then just dries up continually over the heat. We were trying a few different suspension settings over the session but obviously the track was never fully dry, a couple of corners were still quite damp at the end and really quite greasy. With the trees around here in the park it doesn’t dry out too well. All in all we’ve tried some interesting things, and were pretty quick in the free practice, coming in fifth in the dry. We’ve got some work to do tonight, some big things to improve on which is encouraging so I’m optimistic that the changes we’re going to make later which were too long to do today will bring the next step. Fingers crossed again for the weather tomorrow.”

Leon Haslam: “The morning was good and really all today was pretty good, though there were a few small problems in the afternoon session and some of it was a bit of a waste of time. We had some sort of strange clutch problem with both bikes for a while, so to get fifth was not so bad, especially considering the changing conditions. This afternoon’s qualifying started with a wet track and then it began to dry. By the end, there was almost a dry line round the whole track, but there were still some places where you had to keep a look out. The new chicane is a bit safer and it makes the track flow better, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens when the whole pack is charging into it in a race before we can say that it is a success. For me though, the track is now more enjoyable to ride, particularly when you are by yourself. Slipstreaming round here is crucial and will be a big factor in the races. So far, I’ve not had a tow from anybody so I’m looking forward to that tomorrow. Come Race day though, I’d prefer to be a long way out in front and not have to worry about anybody drafting me. That’s my plan anyway.”

Sylvain Guintoli: “I’ve not been here before, so the new chicane means nothing to me. Today, my first job was to learn the track and that’s what I tried to do. The track is quite technical and there are a lot of high speeds and fast corners and so it’s important to be very accurate if you want to go fast. Conditions were changing a lot in this afternoon’s qualifying session and I think I was a bit too cautious in the first chicane and that’s where I lost a lot of time. If I had been more aggressive there, I would’ve been quite a bit further up the leaderboard for sure. I know that slipstreaming is going to very important here – especially in the races – but there are a lot of opportunities to do that round here. However, it’ll also be very easy to get done, so I’ll have to watch out for that.”

Michel Fabrizio: “At the start of the session I was not wanting to take too many risks as some of the corners were pretty slippery so I stayed calm and then began to push as the track dried out. It’s a shame the conditions were so mixed because there were a few things we wanted to work on today but this wet weather didn’t give us the chance. Anyway, it’s been a positive first day. I think the testing at Misano last week helped us to get back on the right track and I’m feeling confident.”

Noriyuki Haga: “Although the lap times were not so great, I’ve actually got quite a good feeling with my 1198. I’m losing time in the last part of the track, from the Ascari corners to the Parabolica, and I need to concentrate on that section tomorrow. We’ll be making a few changes before tomorrow’s sessions and we’ll see how we go, the weather will surely make the difference too.”

Jonathan Rea: “I’m having a lot of fun here, actually! The bike is really good and that’s allowing me to enjoy the circuit. I’m especially pleased with t he long run I did in this morning’s free practice. This afternoon’s session had mixed conditions and we’ve still got some work to do to get the final sector nailed. But luckily the Assen set-up is working well, although there’s still some fine-tuning to be done to get it right for Monza. We’ll study the data later and see what we can do to improve it for tomorrow.”

Max Neukirchner: “Everything’s OK at the moment, but the first sector stayed quite wet during the qualifying session and I was stuck behind Xaus for a while. The other sectors seem to be not too bad and my riding style is still improving. It’s quite good through most of the corners, but in others I’m probably concentrating on the exit a bit too much. The team’s working really well, though, and the bike is pretty good too. I probably need to wake myself up a bit for tomorrow, so maybe I’ll take an extra coffee in the morning!”

Troy Corser: “I’m happy with how things went today and once again I can just go out and ride the bike instead of testing, like we’ve had to do in the past. It was good for the team that we had some damp and some dry conditions here today and they were able to collect a lot of useful data as a result. The bike feels good and I haven’t had to ride beyond myself today at all. The top speed is pretty good and the acceleration also feels strong. The new chicane is not too bad and it’s safer when you are by yourself. But it’s maybe not so safe in a race situation because if somebody outbrakes himself and goes straight on then there is a chance that they will T-bone you when they come back on to the track. To me, it looks like it has been designed for F1 and us bikes just have to put up with it. Monza is a track where slipstreaming is all important. In the old days, when the finish line was further up the track, you could be fifth going into the Parabolica on the last lap and still win the race. Now, because the flag is closer to the Parabolica, if you are fifth going in you will not win the race. Now it’s better to be fifth or so exiting the Ascari and then be leading going into the Parabolica. Normally, if you do that, then you will not be beaten.”