Fabrizio achieves first career pole
Added on Saturday, September 26th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Fabrizio achieves first career pole
Michel Fabrizio overcame one of the most exciting Superpoles of the season to triumph with pole position, ahead of tomorrow’s World Superbike outing at Imola.
The Italian claimed his inaugural career pole position at the Italian venue, on his fianl lap of the qualifying session, just championship contender Ben Spies and Jonathan Rea. Noriyuki Haga secured a fourth place grid start, while Jakub Smrz will be starting fifth. Max Biaggi, Shane Byrne, Marco Simoncelli, Veteran Troy Corser and Briton Leo Haslam complete the top ten. Fellow Brit Tom Sykes will be starting from sixteenth on the grid.
After securing his first pole, Fabrizio said: “I’m really happy, I wanted this Superpole at all costs, and it’s even more satisfying to get it at home. Maybe I should only do the Italian championship as I got my first win at Monza and my first pole here! In any case tomorrow it’ll be a great battle between us young guys, because our race pace is pretty similar, so I feel sure we’ll have some fun tomorrow.”
Ben Spies commented: “It was a good session for us but I kind of blew it in the last section, making a big mistake and that cost us, but I’m on the front row which is where we need to be. All the top guys are on the front row, which is how it should be, none of us will be hanging around so let’s hope we have some fun tomorrow.”
Briton Rea said: “The pace there in the afternoon was fast and we just missed out a little. In the last session and the last qualifier made a big mistake and didn’t quite resurrect that so there wasn’t enough time left. Anyway we’ve got a good race set-up tomorrow, I’m really happy, the guys have done a marvellous job, we’ve got so many new things to try and every week the package is getting better and better.”
In the Supersport series Cal Crutchlow achieved yet another pole position start, indicating his dominance in this years championship.�
