Vallelunga (Italy), Friday 28 September : Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) posted the second quickest time at Vallelunga today as he and his fellow Australian Troy Corser (Yamaha) set the pace in the opening qualifying session. Corser was slightly quicker than Bayliss in both the morning's free practice session and the afternoon qualifier, but there wasn't much between them at the end. Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha) and Max Biaggi (Suzuki) made up the provisional front row of the grid.

"It was a pretty good session" declared Troy. "Even though we tested here only a week or so ago, we did most time on the new bike and it was slow going. Today we tried one thing on the bike and it seemed to work quite well. I did have one little crash just over the back in the slow right-hander. I think it was more me just pushing hard on maximum angle and I lost the front. I went a little bit more up the inside than I normally go and there's a bit of a bump, so I'm going to stay away from there! We tried a softer race tyre at the end, that didn't work at all, then a harder tyre in, the same as the one we used during the session and I did my best time after ten laps. Even though we have to work a bit on the front setting tomorrow, overall I'm quite happy with the way things are going."

"We tried a lot of different things today and at the end I put on the wider tyre but I didn't like it and I was unable to improve" commented Lorenzo. "I did my best time with a 190 tyre that had done eight laps, so I feel sure that if I put on the same tyre but a new one I could improve some more and get down to a low 1m38. But I didn't want to waste a tyre for tomorrow because I didn't think I could complete the lap in time. I like the track, finally I've come to Vallelunga in perfect physical condition. In the winter I was sick and then I was injured for the test so today for me it's really the first time I can push hard on this track. There's still room to improve but I feel confident, also with my race pace, and we'll see tomorrow."