Yamaha World Superbike riders Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty successfully completed the first qualifying session in Brno today, finishing up in third and fourth place respectively. While weather conditions were unpredictable with spatters of rain present in the early parts of the afternoon’s first qualifying, both riders recorded fast and consistent times as the session progressed.

Both Yamaha riders got straight down to business this morning working on Chassis set up ahead of Sunday’s race day. Laverty struggled with an issue on turning his machine and completed the morning’s free practice session in tenth place. Team-mate Melandri, satisfied with the direction he was going in search of a suitable race set up, took third place in the morning’s session.

Both riders head into tomorrow’s second qualifying session intent on fine tuning the race set up on their machines and working on tyre choice for Sunday's races, taking into consideration the high possibility of rain and thunderstorms threatened for the remainder of the weekend.

Marco Melandri - Yamaha World Superbike Team - 3rd, 1'59.653

"Today was a pretty good day for us despite the difficult conditions. The track was very bumpy and the weather was not favorable, it was very windy. The bike was working well and this is clearly a good track for my R1. Overall I’m very happy but I need to improve in some sectors and work on tyre choice to ensure durability. At the moment they seem to work well for few laps and then deteriorate rapidly. I’m confident ahead of Sunday’s races."

Eugene Laverty - Yamaha World Superbike Team - 4th, 1'59.906

"I’m pretty content with the day. This afternoon went much better than this morning’s free practice. I was off the pace this morning but improved in the first qualifying and the bike was turning really well on the side which was an issue earlier in the day. We still need to improve the front end of the bike but I’m confident we can do that. Tomorrow we’ll also work on tyre duration and race pace. At the moment I am where I want to be for a Friday so I’m satisfied."

Andrea Dosoli - Yamaha World Superbike Team Manager

"Today was definitely a good start to the weekend for both riders. Marco and Eugene proved to be consistent and have a good rhythm. After working on and improving the bike’s chassis set up and change of direction earlier in the morning, the riders proceeded to work on tyre choice which will be vital especially seen as the temperature of the asphalt is quite low and they suffer more than we expected. We still need to see where we can fine tune to recuperate the three and five tenths of a second off the lead time. Both riders need to work on the front end of the bike to ensure better feeling on entering the flowing chicanes, especially in areas where the asphalt is not as smooth as it used to be with bumps clearly present."



Lucsa Scassa and Chaz Davies completed the first day on the historical track of Brno in the Czech Republic, today, in ninth and tenth places respectively. Both riders encountered a challenging opening day and spent the duration of the morning’s free practice session struggling with a suspension issue on what presented itself as an extremely bumpy track. Despite this, Scassa and Davies completed a series of laps, gathering important feedback which enabled the Yamaha ParkinGO team to make progress prior to the afternoon’s first qualifying session.

The afternoon was also less than perfect in that Davies struggled with a chattering issue while Scassa had difficulty reaching ideal speeds on entering the flowing chicanes characteristic of the Brno circuit. As the session progressed both riders succeeded in making improvements to their machine, produce faster times and complete the session in ninth and tenth positions.

Luca Scassa - Yamaha ParkinGO Team - 9th, 2'05.079

"It wasn’t exactly an easy day today. I struggled with a suspension issue this morning and had difficulty getting speed in on entering curves and ended up going wide. We made progress, changed to a softer suspension and I managed to improve my times a little so that was good. We still need to improve tomorrow but I’m confident we are going in the right direction and can do well here."


Chaz Davies - Yamaha ParkinGO Team - 10th, 2'05.155

"I couldn’t seem to get a good feeling with the front of the bike. I struggled quite a bit with a chattering issue which means I can’t tackle the curves as I’d like to. I like this track and I’m confident here. I’m sure that once we have worked on the issue, we can resolve it and I reduce the significant margin between myself and Parkes and can be competitive on Sunday."