Hodgson on pole for Round 2

Frankie Chili put in another good performance in this morning’s qualifying session at Philip Island beating Neil Hodgson in to second place with a time of 1:32.786. But the Italian had to settle for second place behind Hodgson’s 1:33.030 Superpole.

The surprise of the day came in the from of David Garcia. The NCR Ducati rider was riding in his first ever WSB Superpole but managed to clock a time of 1:34.184, good enough to land him a third place start.

Finishing the front row will be HM Plant rider Chris Walker who completed the Superpole lap in 1:34.211, with team-mate James Toseland hot on his heals finishing in fifth place just 0.064s behind.

Troy Corser failed to get another front row start for the Foggy Petronas team finishing in sixth place, he admitted he was a little disappointed after the teams performance in Valencia.

Gregorio Lavilla risked a complete change of the setup of his Alstare Suzuki GSX-R1000 this morning, but reaped the rewards with a better handling bike and seventh place on the grid.

He said: ” My Superpole could’ve been better, but the rear tyre lost grip in the final section and I lost a bit of time, otherwise we would’ve been on the front row of the grid. ”

Despite managing to place third in the second qualifying session, Fila Ducati rider Ruben Xaus will be starting from eighth place after crashing during the Superpole. Although he did not register a time WSB rules mean that he can only be dropped back to the row behind the one he provisionally qualified on.

Xaus said: ” I’d like to apologise to the team for this, the guys have worked hard all weekend and it’s all my fault. I came hard into the corner, braked too late and the front end just went away from me. ”

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