Yamaha World Superbike riders successfully completed today's opener to the season showdown which took place in scorching sunshine at the Portuguese track of Portimao, on the infamous Algarve. Yamaha riders Eugene Laverty and Marco Melandri, intent on concluding the 2011 season in the best possible manner, got straight down to business to wind up the day in second and eighth places on the scoreboard.

Eugene Laverty, determined to keep a strong hold on his current third place in the championship standings, was quick off the mark as early as in the morning's free practice session which he wrapped up in seventh position. After making some adjustments to the suspensions of his R1 machine prior to the afternoon's first qualifying practice, the Northern Irish rider proceeded to lap the Portuguese track at a relatively fast pace, clocking in an impressive 1’43.666 towards the end to climb up to second, just 0.087 of a second behind World Champion, Checa and on a provisional front row on Sunday's race grid.

Team-mate and fellow World Superbike rookie Melandri, worked hard today to get re-familiarized with the circuit which he first experienced just one month after his shoulder surgery, last January. The Italian spent the morning confronting different set-ups on the two R1s in search of suitable direction to work in. Despite the significant lack of rear grip, Melandri managed to make progress throughout the afternoon's first qualifying session to end up in eighth place. Both Yamaha riders will continue to make adjustments and fine tune their machinery in tomorrow's practice session ahead of the grand finale races on Sunday.

Eugene Laverty - Yamaha World Superbike Team - 2nd, 1'43.666

"It was a pretty good day today, similar to the first qualifying session in Magny Cours. I've tested the Superbike here already so I feel comfortable on it and it’s nice to be up to speed from the very start of the weekend and not have to be catching up gradually. The R1 is working well, we got good speed in but the lap times are dropping after just a few laps so we need to work on consistency for tomorrow. Hopefully our lap times should be ok to get through to Superpole and we'll see what other changes to make in the morning."


Marco Melandri - Yamaha World Superbike Team - 8th, 1'44.112

"It was a fairly tough day today. I was struggling with a lack of rear grip all day which we managed to improve slightly only with the softer tyres. We are not at all where I'd like to be at the end of the first day, but hopefully we can make good progress for tomorrow. We need to focus mainly on improving lap times with the race set up, as at the moment I am quite slow."


Andrea Dosoli - Yamaha World Superbike Team Manager

"In general the day went quite well, having both riders provisionally in the front two rows. As we expected, Eugene was quick from the very first session, has a good pace with the race tyres and is just behind Checa using the softer tyres. He needs to work on the stability of his machine and improve in sectors where he is losing some time. We knew Marco had to use the first session to get familiar with the track and learn the lines but he made noticeable improvements by the afternoon's session. He is fast with the soft tyres but the team need to work hard to improve the set-up to provide better rear grip on the race tyres and how the bike enters corners. We are confident that he will make further progress tomorrow and both riders can be at the front on Sunday."



The season grand finale got off to a great start today in sweltering hot sunshine in Portimao, on the Portuguese Algarve, with Yamaha ParkinGO riders completing the first qualifying session with Scassa in second place and the new WSS Champion, Davies in fourth.

Despite a significant lack of grip due to the hot track temperatures of 44 degrees, Scassa and Davies managed to work through various R6 set-up and tyre options and make constant progress, bettering their times towards the end of the session to wrap up the first day in perfect fashion with a provisional front row start on Sunday's grid.

Luca Scassa was on flying form today, taking up from where he left off, following his race victory in Magny Cours. The Italian is intent on fighting hard on Sunday to climb back up the championship standings and complete the season in the top three. Recently crowned WSS Champion, Chaz Davies, was back in full swing and working hard in order to be in a position to defend his new title on Sunday and add to his numerous achievements so far this year.

Luca Scassa - Yamaha ParkinGO Team - 2nd, 1'46.201

"I was struggling quite a lot from a lack of grip in the morning's free practice session but we changed set-up quite a bit and saw an immediate improvement. I managed to put in faster laps in the afternoon’s qualifying session and towards at the very end jumped up to second place, which I am really pleased with. We still have some fine tuning to do for tomorrow but I'm confident that I can be at the top and on the front row on Sunday."


Chaz Davies - Yamaha ParkinGO Team - 4th, 1'46.390

"Despite the lack of grip on the track in today's two sessions we still managed to work through various settings, making noticeable progress. There's still quite a bit of work to be done particularly to the front of the machine but we are heading in the right direction and I’m sure that tomorrow I can be stronger and more competitive, thanks to the hard work the team is doing yet again."

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