Blog.alstare

Friday February 27th 2009

12 :00am

This morning, the waves song kept me quiet after the alarm woke me up. You have to stay cool this morning, mostly because it’s the first day of a long Championship which is starting here, in Phillip-Island.

All habits have returned. Eyes will stay focussed on screens which will relay laptimes from timing marcshals. Riders will have nearly lost their smiles and will double their concentration. Laptimes sheets will be spead on all desks. Telemetry colored data’s fireworks will announce loud and shorts comments. Flashes will restart in front of the garage. So, return to a normal life.

Now the paddock is completed. Everybody has new colors, except Ducati who’s still printing on outdated printers… Bah, I’m joking. In facts, for those early days, there’s always a short time to get use of this, who’s who, who works for who even if most of them were already there last year.

All journalists are here too. So, all returned to its place for a new saison announced as the most exiting of Superbike history.

This morning too, it’s time for special passes distribution for grid and signal area. Like every year, it’s a problem. Organization is trying to reduce allocations for security reasons. But a team needs also to work and then to be at a specific place.

First session has just ended.  With second and fourth place, we’re not so bad. We know nobody’s chasing for fast laps but we’re here. To be fair, with same weather conditions as last Saturday, we reproduced same laptimes. This afternnon should give a better idea of all riders ability. Our riders know both we’re just making the first steps of  long risky championship and they must scored big points and avoid mistqkes and injuries. Mostly because, every championship start, all riders have the same ranking points and they’re all thinking this will be Their season. In facts, they’ve all got one chance… but not same.

3 :30pm

Ok. Let’s say our previous idea was not so bad. Finish 4th and 5th after leading most of the session, with correct laptimes for race pace and, also, with a temperature overtaking 32°C, so to be compared to last Sunday. That’s fine. Both riders have achieved more than 20 laps each with fair laptimes in those conditions. Teh three riders who passed us in the last five minutes did only one fast lap. Their average pace on this session put them behind. And yes, there’s nothing to win being the fastest today, except an increased coverage for having been the first officially fastest of this 2009 Championship. Hmm… Let’s see.

Tomorrow will be an other day. Rain is supposed to arrive and, if wind is remaining, we could have terrible conditions for riding. But, if the weather’s fine on Sunday, we’ve got already a good basic set-up.

For me, no meeting, no extra work to be done, my pen should fine time to tell you in french only, how it’s been for this week’s start and the videos. Sorry, it would be too long to translate.

You’ll know more by tomorrow.

Today’s results :

1  96 Smrz J. (CZE) Ducati 1098R 1′32.312

2  41 Haga N. (JPN) Ducati 1098R 1′32.569

3  91 Haslam L. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 1′32.623

4  76 Neukirchner M. (GER) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9 1′32.673

5  71 Kagayama Y. (JPN) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9 1′32.704

6  56 Nakano S. (JPN) Aprilia RSV4 1′32.928

7  84 Fabrizio M. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1′32.932

8  19 Spies B. (USA) Yamaha YZF R1 1′32.939

9  66 Sykes T. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R1 1′32.971

10   9 Kiyonari R. (JPN) Honda CBR1000RR 1′32.991

11   3 Biaggi M. (ITA) Aprilia RSV4 1′32.995

12  55 Laconi R. (FRA) Ducati 1098 RS 09 1′33.202

13  44 Rolfo R. (ITA) Honda CBR1000RR 1′33.206

14   7 Checa C. (ESP) Honda CBR1000RR 1′33.224

15  67 Byrne S. (GBR) Ducati 1098R 1′33.317

16  11 Corser T. (AUS) BMW S1000 RR 1′33.377

17  65 Rea J. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 1′33.418

18 100 Tamada M. (JPN) Kawasaki ZX 10R 1′33.709

19  23 Parkes B. (AUS) Kawasaki ZX 10R 1′33.911

20 111 Xaus R. (ESP) BMW S1000 RR 1′34.080

21  33 Hill T. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 1′34.123

22  25 Salom D. (ESP) Kawasaki ZX 10R 1′34.487

23  24 Roberts B. (AUS) Ducati 1098R 1′35.123

24  31 Muggeridge K. (AUS) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9 1′35.716

25  99 Scassa L. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R 1′35.759

26  77 Iannuzzo V. (ITA) Honda CBR1000RR 1′36.103

27  15 Baiocco M. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R 1′36.514

28  86 Badovini A. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R 1′37.127