Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport was welcomed by typically unpredictable British weather at Silverstone (GBR). The iconic circuit hosts the tenth round of the 2012 FIM Superbike World Championship. Today’s free practice started in dry conditions, but during the session, it began to rain. The showers stopped in time for the first qualifying practice in the afternoon. The sun came out, but the track only dried slowly during the session. Factory rider Marco Melandri (ITA) qualified provisional 12th on his BMW S 1000 RR. His team-mate, local hero Leon Haslam (GBR), was 13th. Ayrton Badovini and Michel Fabrizio (both ITA) of the BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet SBK Team finished 11th and 16th respectively.
Marco Melandri
Fastest lap Free Practice: 2:07.365 min (P5)/Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: 2:07.244 min (P12)
“The day was not easy. We were struggling with chattering and like that it was difficult to go fast. So we will try to improve this. The weather today was not such a big issue as we could wait in the garage but for tomorrow and Sunday it is going to be tricky because the track takes a long time to dry and you have so many different kinds of tarmac. Some parts of the track stay more wet, some less and the grip is completely different from one turn to another so it will not be easy.”
Leon Haslam
Fastest lap Free Practice: 2:08.047 min (P9)/Fastest lap Qualifying Practice 1: 2:07.401 min (P13)
“For us today was all about working on the set-up rather than trying to do fast lap times. Right now we are not too worried and just working setting up the RR for this track. The weather conditions were difficult. You always have in the back of your mind that it might rain and this morning we did just three laps in the dry and a couple in the rain so it was a kind of wasted session. This afternoon it stayed dry but during the first part of the session there were wet patches so it was difficult to do a full dry set-up but we made some good progress and I am positive for the rest of the weekend.”
Andrea Dosoli – Head of Race Operations
“Today we experienced all the possibilities of weather that we can expect in England. We certainly have a lot of work to do on the bikes for both riders. Overall, the weather conditions did not help us to work on the set-up because the time on a dry track was limited. Both riders were struggling with grip which is quite normal after the rain and we will work on that. Marco still had some vibrations and he and his crew will work on fixing it. Leon and his crew will try to improve the bike’s balance so tonight we will analyse all the data to improve the feel for both riders for tomorrow’s qualifying practice.”
