Utah: Team YZF Yamaha qualifying report

NAKATOMI 22ND

Shinichi Nakatomi did his best on the new Miller Motorsports Park circuit, but could not qualify for the Superpole. His qualifying practice sessions went fairly well, the Japanese rider being only 1.6 seconds from the best time.

After the qualifying sessions on race tyres, 5 different manufacturers were on the top 5 positions: Yamaha (with Troy Corser) was leading, in front of Ducati (with Troy Bayliss), Kawasaki (with Regis Laconi), Honda (with Carlos Checa) and Suzuki (with Fonsi Nieto).

Courageously, Noriyuki Haga ended up 10th of the Superpole with a right collarbone that was broken when he crashed on Saturday morning. Spaniard Carlos Checa (Honda) was the fastest in the Superpole in front of the Monza winner Max Neukirchner (Suzuki) and the World Championship leader Troy Bayliss (Ducati).

Martial Garcia (team-manager): "Like the other riders, Nakatomi did not know this track. He finished at 1.6 seconds of the fastest time in the qualifying practices, which is good. But this year there are many riders so he is 22nd. The motorcycle is good; there is no problem with the handling or the engine. Our only difficulty is the acceleration, which is complicated because we do not have any traction control device. We are one of the very few teams which does not use one and this is a handicap on this track where the exit of the curves are very important."

7th round of the Superbike World Championship: June 15th at the Nurburgring (Germany)

-credit: yzf yamaha