Utah: Yamaha Saturday report

[Adam]

Crutchlow and Toseland get straight onto the pace in Utah

The wide open skies of Utah provided the perfect back drop for Yamaha Sterilgarda riders Cal Crutchlow and James Toseland today as they got down to business in the first qualifying session of the Salt Lake City race weekend.

Crutchlow's pace was quick from the go, the rider rarely straying out of the top three and running fastest at times during the session. As the flag signalled the end of the weekend's first qualifying heat he took third with a provisional front row start, less than two tenths off provisional pole. Crutchlow's team mate Toseland put in a remarkable performance in his first riding session on the Miller Motorsports circuit. Despite no track knowledge Toseland spent a good part of the morning's free practice session in the top three riders, and continued to display consistent fast pace in the afternoon's qualifying despite a small crash near the end of the session. He ended the session in seventh position, less than four tenths of a second off provisional pole, and just two tenths off team mate Crutchlow.

Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team (3rd, 1'48.682)

"It wasn't too bad today, third position is pretty good. I had some issues with the brakes and was struggling to stop in some places, making it difficult to judge when to brake. We've got some new things to try tomorrow, and I have to say it's a very different riding experience on the R1 compared to the Supersport bike last year."

James Toseland, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team (7th, 1'48.887)

"I've never been too bad at learning circuits, but it's been pretty impressive for some of the guys including Frankie my Crew Chief as it's their first time here too. To get the bike running as well as it was today is great, fair play to them. I'm a bit annoyed with myself for the crash as I don't usually make mistakes like that, I just got a bit excited as the bike was feeling so good. I thought I could go round the corner a bit faster than the package could, I think I was 17 years old the last time my enthusiasm outmatched my talent! All in all a good day, I'm pleased with the progress and it's a great track, the bike works really well round here."

Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team Manager "We made a good start today. We are improving the bike all the time and we came here knowing we had good results from last year which gave us a confident start. We didn't push too hard, and hopefully tomorrow we will make another step forward. We have a technical problem with Cal's brakes which we are looking into and will resolve for tomorrow. James had a small crash at the end of qualifying but he had no injuries at all."

-source: yamaha

[xzpolskix]

I'm hoping they can both bring up their pace a little. The last couple of races I've watched them race in, it hasn't been all that impressive. Looking at the standings at this moment, Toseland is in 5th place (behind 1st place by 97 points) and Crutchlow is in 9th (behind 1st by 136 points).
Luckily we got MotoGP to keep Yamaha on top with Lorenzo and Rossi ranking 1st and 2nd respectively

[brad321]

Is there any video for that