News 7 Oct 2017

Positive Phillip Island qualifier for DesmoSport Ducati's Turner

DesmoSport Ducati press release:

DesmoSport Ducati continued to move in a positive direction during today’s two Superbike qualifying sessions at Phillip Island’s seventh and final round of the 2017 Australian Superbike Championship.

Welcomed with improved weather conditions for Saturday’s sessions, premier class newcomer Turner logged a fast lap of 1m34.244s to move himself into 12th position on the starting grid ahead of Sunday’s two-race schedule.

Crediting his improved times to changes with the 1299 Panigale S settings and more favourable track conditions, the 19-year-old looks forward to tomorrow’s racing where he expects to find additional on-track pace.

“Today was definitely a step forward from yesterday and I think the better weather was the main reason,” said Turner. “The Ducati is one of the lighter bikes out there, so I wasn’t being blown around as much. We did make a lot of changes to the bike and every change we made took us in the right direction, which was good.

“I’m definitely looking forward to the races tomorrow, I think I can go quicker again in the race. I never really qualify well and we’re not too far off the front, so we’ll work on that tomorrow and a lot of it will depend on the weather as well.”

Admitting that the effects from Turner’s recent Phillip Island test crash are still lingering, team co-owner and manager Ben Henry remains positive as the teenager begins to return to his previous form ahead of Sunday’s race day.

“You can see that we are moving forward and where we are today is where I expected us to be on Friday,” Henry commented. “Unfortunately we had a crash here two weeks ago and we’re still trying to iron those bugs out, but once we get back there, we’ll be fine and we look forward to tomorrow’s pair of races.”

Race one is scheduled to start at 1:05pm local time and will be aired live on SBS, while the second 12-lap encounter will take off at 3:20pm, televised live on SBS Viceland. Live-streaming will also feature online throughout the round via official ASBK channels.

Like DesmoSport Ducati on Facebook and visit www.asbk.com.au for further information. Cube Performance Centre also has an exclusive DesmoSport Ducati section on its website, available to view at www.cubeperformancecentre.com.au/desmosport-ducati now.

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