Coming off of a double victory at Miller Motorsports Park, Carlos Checa continued to lead the World Superbike pack. Checa led the first qualifying session at Misano, but Max Biaggi and Marco Melandri were close behind.
Checa led for the majority of the session, but Biaggi started to close the gap during the final minutes. Biaggi closed the gap to .12 seconds before the qualifying session was red flagged due to a high speed crash involving Troy Corser.
Corser was taken to the medical center for a check-up, but initial reports say that he should be fine to compete tomorrow. Corser ended the day in fifth.
Marco Melandri was the third fastest bike today, but Melandri couldn’t quite keep up with the leader’s pace. Melandri finished .4 seconds behind the pacesetter.
Behind the top three came Michel Fabrizio, Corser, and Eugene Laverty.
Jakub Smrz, Noriyuki Haga, Sylvain Guintoli, and Tom Sykes completed the top 10 for the World Superbike riders. The top 10 riders were all within .8 seconds of one another.
World Superbike - First Qualifying - Misano
- Checa - 1'36.024
- Biaggi - 1'36.149
- Melandri - 1'36.482
- Fabrizio - 1'36.546
- Corser - 1'36.656
- Laverty - 1'36.683
- Smrz - 1'36.713
- Haga - 1'36.728
- Guintoli - 1'36.753
- Sykes - 1'36.793
