Checa continues to reign supreme

Carlos Checa has set the fastest time in first qualifying for Sunday’s opening round of the Superbike World Championship at Phillip Island.

After showing the field a clean pair of heels in first practice the world No 3 again stole the show, eventually stopping the clock with a best of 1min31.577secs – well under Aussie Troy Corser’s official lap record.

But ominously for Checa’s sparring partners, that time is still one second slower than what the Spaniard achieved in testing at Phillip Island earlier this week, which means he still has plenty in reserve ahead of the final battle for grid positions tomorrow afternoon at 3:00pm.

Checa is Ducati’s main championship hope in 2011 following the official withdrawal of the marque’s factory team at the end of last year.

“Basically, we worked with the tyres this afternoon, just to make choices for race day,” said Checa. “I felt good today but I think the grip was just a little bit less from the race track.

“We used the ‘big’ rear tyre and had similar results to the previous ones, so if we do that I prefer to continue with the existing tyres for now. Tomorrow we will just work towards race day again, do a comparison with the tyres and then do some longer runs on the tyre we expect to use for the race.”

Meanwhile, two other riders managed to join Checa in the 31-second bracket – his fellow Ducati rider Sylvain Guintoli and Yamaha rookie Eugene Laverty.

Behind Laverty, the next 15 riders were separated by just over one second, with the block including three Australians – Suzuki’s Josh Waters in 10th, BMW’s Corser in 11th, and Kawasaki’s Bryan Staring in 17th. Mark Aitchison (Kawasaki) was 21st out of 22 riders.

Moreover, all seven manufacturers in this year’s championship managed to squeeze bikes inside the top 10, which is another sign of just how brutally competitive the racing is going to be in 2011 – starting with Sunday’s two 22-lap races at Phillip Island.

Meanwhile, Aprilia’s world champion Max Biaggi set the fourth fastest time in first qualifying, followed by Ducati’s Jakub Smrz and last year’s pole position man, Briton Leon Haslam (BMW).

Haslam, who shared victories at Phillip Island in 2010 with Checa, crashed at turn two in the final minutes of the session, and Italian star Michel Fabrizio (Suzuki) was another to bite the dust at high speed on the 4.445km circuit. Both were uninjured – but Fabrizio’s bike will require some sharp attention after cartwheeling through the outfield.

Fabrizio remains the fastest Suzuki rider on track, but 24-year-old Mildura rider Waters is keeping the Italian within his sights as he continues to build a compelling case ahead of his WSBK race debut on Sunday.

“I’m just so thrilled to be in the company of such exalted company,” said Waters, a former junior dirt track prodigy and the 2009 Australian Superbike champion. “To be honest, I’m not really fussed where I am sitting on the timesheets at the moment, because I’m just trying to make small gains whenever I hit the track. We’ll have to wait and see where that leaves me on Sunday.”

For Corser, his 17th visit to Phillip Island for WSBK combat has so far been an exasperating one, but the 39-year-old veteran feels he’s now heading in the right direction.

“We have definitely made improvements with the bike,” said Corser. “My bike’s set-up is now pretty much the same as Haslam’s, and my lap times pretty much dropped to the same level of Leon’s lap times in the morning.

“Obviously we have moved on, but still we are not where we want to be. Again, this afternoon we tried some things but did not improve any further. After this morning’s session, we can be happy with the qualifying result. We now look into the data and see where we can further improve.”

The second WSBK qualifying session will be held at 10:45am tomorrow, before the final jockeying for grid positions in the popular Superpole format at 3:00pm.

In world Supersport, 2002 champion Fabien Foret (Honda) has been Checa-like this weekend, and maintained his ascendancy in opening qualifying.

He finished just ahead of Spain’s David Salom (Kawasaki) and rookie Sam Lowes (Honda), with local pair Broc Parkes (Kawasaki) and Mitchell Pirotta (Honda) seventh and 23rd respectively.

Final qualifying for the 26 world Supersport riders will be held at 4:05pm tomorrow.

Click on the following link for full results from Phillip Island.