After a disappointing morning practice that saw Toseland experiencing a minor problem with his CBR1000RR, the British rider fought back in the official session to finish at the top of the timesheet. He set three fastest laps in quick succession towards the end of the hour-long qualifying, beating the existing Monza best Superbike lap by over half a second with a time of 1'45.953.


Team-mate Rolfo continued to rise up the timesheet after two satisfying sessions in his home country. The 25-year-old secured his personal best lap at the 5.793km Monza circuit during the afternoon qualifying with a time of 1'46.960. Rolfo's aim for the tomorrow is to finish in the top eight for a spot at the front of the grid for Sunday's 18-lap race.


Ronald ten Kate, Team Manager:

"So far I'm quite happy with the job of both riders in the HANNspree Ten Kate Honda team. James is leading the provisional grid, which is good. We still have a bit of work to do dealing with some small issues that cost us valuable track time during the session. Hopefully we can sort this out and concentrate on race distance tomorrow. I'm also happy to see Roby further up the grid - the progress he made at Assen is continuing at Monza. He is in eighth position so there is still a bit more work to do but hopefully tomorrow we will see him qualify on the second row to at least get a good start to the race with the front runners."



James Toseland:

"It was a good session this afternoon, although this morning was really bad. We had a problem with the rear spindle and it took the guys about 15 minutes to put it right so that cost us some time. Anyway, we changed quite a bit in the session and we have a really good set-up for the bike - it's feeling really strong. It's nice to be quickest on Friday."


Roberto Rolfo

"I am happy with qualifying this afternoon. We worked with the race setting, which was important for me because I want to understand the track and improve my riding style on the bike. I wanted to find a good feeling for the corner exit because I think this is very important at Monza. I think I have improved and by the last part of the session I was improving lap by lap. I am happy with the time because it's the fastest ever lap I have done at this track. I was good at the beginning and good at the end so we have to look at all the data and bring it together to get one great lap tomorrow."