Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127577
Stephane Mertens (7), Carl Fogarty (4), Fabrizio Pirovano (5) and the rest of the pack battle in the second leg; Pirovano, Mertens and Fogarty finished fifth, sixth and seventh. Falappa was third quickest with a 2:04.76 on the Team Roche Ducati. The bike was fitted with the same variable length inlet tract for the injectors which Roche used last year and a new exhaust power valve system, but the team decided against using them in Germany. His teammate Carl Fogarty was next up with 2:04.80 after getting a fresh engine - the same spec as Falappa's. But the Brit was still struggling to get the suspension to his liking. He clocked the fastest recorded time through the speed trap that was set up just before the first chicane - 179 mph. "The new engine feels a lot sharper," Fogarty said. "The other one felt much the same as my engine I had last year. The only problem we have now is an oil leak. There's so much oil everywhere we're not really sure where it's coming out." Aaron Slight completed the front row with a 2:05.01. Slight said he could have gone faster on his qualifying tires, but was balked by a train of Ducatis just when he was setting up for a hot lap. His best lap was recorded on race rubber. "Bloody Ducatis," he moaned. "Each time I went to pass, they would pull across and I kept having to slow. The team got me on 4.9 (2:04.9) on race rubber, but I did a flat five first lap on my qualifiers and could have gone a lot quicker." The fastest Yamaha was BYRD's Pirovano - and it was fast, 178 mph throl'gh the speed trap, but "Fabri" was still battling to get the suspension sorted. The BYRD team is desperately short of track time, mainly because the team says they have a shortage of spares. Pirovano rides a customer lo1l.t bike in Italian championships - a very different motorcycle to his World Superbike machine. Adrien Morillas qualified seventh, finding almost two seconds improvement in the final session on the Kawasaki France machine. "First prac- Scott Russell won his first-ever World Superbike race with a second-leg win in Germany; he finished sixth in the first leg. tice, the suspension was so bad, I could not put fuJI gas along the straight," he complained. "And we had a spark plug break up which gave us a misfire. Then in the final session we softened the front suspension, made the rear harder and it is now perfect." Andy Hoffman was the fastest German with a 2:05.41 on his Kawasaki Deutschland ZXR then came Terry Rymer on the Pepsi Galp Yamaha. The two broken bones in the back of his right hand, and the shoulder ligament damage from his Le Mans 24-Hour practice crash had not healed. But he set his clip-on handlebars much flatter for extra leverage, fitted a high screen and turned a 2:05.81. The team had done some engine work and was trying a new exhaust system. The bike was fast but the White Power suspension still needed to be sorted out. Fred Merkel was down in 12th position on the grid and bemoaning lack of track time with his BYRD Yamaha. He doesn't even get to run the Italian Championship races and is keeping in shape between races with triathlons but admitted: "Fitness training is okay, but nothing works better than getting on a motorcycle," Merkel said. "We need to do some proper testing, not come to the races to sort the thing out." Baldassarre Monti was disappointed to be back on the third row: "Monti is fast - bike is slow," he shrugged. "It is 9