The two Althea Racing riders, Davide Giugiano and Lorenzo Baroni, were on track today for the first practice and qualifying of the eighth round of the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup taking place at the Autodromo di Imola.
Giugliano, championship leader after seven of ten rounds, immediately got to work in this morning’s first practice, lapping in under 1’53 in the first ten minutes. An unfortunate crash in the final stages of the session prevented him from improving further and his fastest time already set (1’52.9) placed him sixth at the session’s end. His team-mate Lorenzo Baroni, currently sixth in the classification with three rounds left to run, recorded a fastest lap time of 1m52.7 this morning, making constant progress during the 30-minute session and closing in fourth position, two tenths of a second faster than Davide.
During the afternoon’s qualifying session, Althea Racing’s riders were back on a now much hotter track (43˚C) for first qualifying. With his bike fixed after this morning’s crash, Giugliano was able to get back on the right track during this session, making consistently fast laps and recording a best time of 1m51.2 in the final minutes. He closed first qualifying in second position, just two tenths from Petrucci in first. During qualifying, Baroni was able to lower his best time set this morning by eight tenths, recording a fast lap time of 1m51.9 and concluding the session in sixth position.
Davide Giugliano
“Today was a positive day, except for this morning’s crash of course that’s left me with a sore back. I made a mistake following the line and accidently went over the filler that they’d put down after an incident in an earlier session. We sorted the bike in time for qualifying and got back to work. I took it a bit more carefully but still managed to make fast laps, closing in second, and we’re only a couple of tenths from Petrucci so I’m feeling confident for the race.”
Lorenzo Baroni
“This morning we got off to quite a good start. Overall I’ve been going pretty fast and we’re close to those directly ahead of us in terms of times even if the quickest guy is almost a second ahead. We’re nonetheless feeling confident. Of course it would be great to reach the podium at my home race but we’ll have to battle it out as ever with the usual five or six riders.”
Free practice 1 results available here. Qualifying practice 1 results available here.
