Despite the wintery conditions and heavy rain in Miller Motorsports Park, Utah today Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty put their heads down on their Yamaha R1’s and impressed in this afternoon’s Superpole to complete the sessions in third and fourth respectively, securing two front row places for the Yamaha World Superbike Team on tomorrow’s grid. Heavy down pour during this morning’s second Qualifying session prevented all riders from improving on yesterday’s first qualifying times. The rain began to ease just in time for the first heat of today’s Superpole, which took Laverty and Melandri comfortably into the second Superpole heat in third and fifth place respectively. As the session progressed the track conditions continued to improve enabling the riders to produce faster times in the remaining two heats. Laverty maintained a place in the top four throughout the second Superpole and managed to put in a flying lap in the dying minutes bumping him up to third while team- mate Melandri went through to the final heat in eighth position. The third and final Superpole of the day saw the two Yamaha World Superbike rookies put the hammer down to record consistently fast laps on a drying track and claim a well-earned front row position ahead of tomorrow’s races. Melandri will start in third place on the grid, behind Checa and Smrz, with team-mate Laverty just beside him in fourth. The fifth round of the WSB championship will take place tomorrow, Monday which is the celebrated “Memorial Day” in the USA. Race one will be held at the usual time of 12.00 and race two at 15.30, U.S. local time, eight hours behind Central European time.
Marco Melandri Yamaha World Superbike Team - 3rd, 1'58.609 “I actually didn’t expect to secure a front row place. I’m really happy and I want to thank the team for their hard work over the weekend. Yesterday didn’t go as well as I’d have hoped and this morning was also very difficult in the heavy rain. We changed the set up and made great progress before this afternoon. I don’t know what the weather will be like tomorrow and a lot depends on that. I’m really pleased with today but tomorrow could be another story. I hope luck will be on my side!”
Eugene Laverty Yamaha World Superbike Team - 4th, 1'58.860 “I’m quite content with the day. This morning’s qualifying in the wet conditions didn’t go so well, I was quite low down in the standings and I didn’t have the right feeling with the bike. We worked hard all afternoon and continued to move in the right direction. I’m confident that we’ll be up there fighting for the podium in both wet and dry race conditions. I’m on the front row which is great and it’s important to get away in the long run into the first corner. Hopefully I can catch Checa, but it would be nice to be on the podium.”