BMW Motorrad Motorsport were left disappointed after both riders were knocked out in SP2 during the Superpole session for tomorrow's World Superbike races at Assen.
Troy Corser and Leon Haslam will line up on the third row of the grid, in tenth and twelfth respectively after missing the cut in a closely fought second session.
And the British rider was frustrated with the result after admitting the pace was in the bike to make the third session.
“It's a shame to finish up in 12th because my times on race tyres were good enough to get me through to Superpole 3. The qualifying tyre just didn't work for us today. It's frustrating for sure because this is the first time I have been off the front row. Still we need to forget about this now and concentrate on the races tomorrow.”
Teammate Corser had set the quickest time in the final free practice session before Superpole began but was unable to convert that into a good grid slot.
But the Australian was also encouraged by the speed of the BMW S1000 RR, and is confident of moving forward tomorrow.
“On race tyres the bike feels good. We are able to run consistently good laps times and our race pace looks good for tomorrow. Superpole today was disappointing for sure; we struggled to get the optimum performance from the qualifying tyres. So tomorrow we will have to focus on getting a good start and try and push to run with the riders on the front row. I am confident enough in my starts to hopefully achieve that”
Head of Race Operations Rainer Baumel added that the riders had struggled to extract the peak performance from the Pirelli tyres in Qualifying trim, but expects the team to be stronger tomorrow.
“Unfortunately, in the second Superpole session, we had issues with the qualifying tyres and both riders were affected. Tomorrow, we will try to make the best out of it. We are quite confident because our long run performance with race tyres is still very good. I expect very close races, just as we saw here last year. We have to try to be in the leading group and then anything is possible.”