A splendid sunshine made as background to the first practice day of World Superbike and Supersport at Brands Hatch.

In Supersport Gianluca Nannelli, after a promising free practice session in the morning, had several difficulties during afternoon’s qualifying, recording the 17^th fastest, just a whisker better as in the morning. Handling problems did condition the afternoon’s session and also with qualifying tyres the heavy traffic along the track opposed to the possibility to get a top ten position.

“This is for me a very special track and I’m sure I could get a very good result.” – commented Gianluca Nannelli at the end of the day. – “In the morning’s free practice we took so good result as to made also a long run to give some information to Pirelli engineers. I was rather satisfied because my pace was like the best and I was just 0,6 second slower as the leader. For the afternoon the track was changed, with an asphalt temperature higher 10°C more as in the morning, and we had problems to find a good set up. We made some change, but without result, so for tomorrow we’ll start with the morning set up. I tried to be ready for the last minutes of practice, but on the track there was too much people looking for a good trail. Me too I had a misunderstanding with another rider that ruined my right lap, losing the opportunity for a good result. Tomorrow we’ll try new set solutions and I want to improve my performance.”

Jakub Smrz on the 999F05 Superbike has been engaged in the difficult set up research on a completely unknown course, and his laptime show that difficulty, non allowing him to do better as 18^th fastest.

“During all today we focused to study the track and to find a good set up.” – said Jakub Smrz at the end of practices. – “But with non knowledge of the track isn’t easy to find a good set up, often you enter the wring direction and you must reverse your choice, starting once more from zero. Today we had a lot of problems with the rear grip and also in the corner’s approach I hadn’t a good feeling. Now I’m going to know the track, it’s very good and demanding, so we have a more clear idea about the intervent to do for tomorrow’s final qualifying and I’m confident to be able to do better tomorrow.”