09-06-02  ASSEN - FRIDAY QUALIFYING Ducati Corse Press Xaus (Ducati Infostrada) hits top form in first Assen qualifying – Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada) fifth – Bostrom (Ducati L&M) seventh. Championship leader Troy Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada) set fifth quickest time in Friday qualifying for the twelfth and penultimate round of the World Superbike Championship at Assen (Netherlands) today as team-mate Ruben Xaus (Ducati Infostrada) challenged Honda’s Colin Edwards for the provisional top slot. Ben Bostrom (Ducati L&M) was two places behind the Australian in seventh. Bostrom (Ducati L&M) found things tough going in the early part of the session, but bolted on a softer tyre towards the end to notch up seventh quickest time in 2’03.414. “Qualifying was tough today, for some reason this is a difficult track for me,” commented Ben. “I’m looking for a good result and we’re just having to keep working at it all weekend. It’s important to get the bike dialled in early because it’s a real physical track and we didn’t really do that today. If you’re off just a little bit at this circuit, you have to work real hard during the race. We’ve still got some way to go on the set-up before we can get things sorted out and push for a front-row grid position.” QUALIFYING TIMES in association with Breil, the official timekeeper of Ducati Corse. BACK    03/10/02 VALENCIA Spain 03/24/02 PHILLIP ISLAND Australia 04/07/02 KYALAMI South Africa 04/21/02 SUGO Japan 05/12/02 MONZA Italy 05/26/02 SILVERSTONE Great Britain 06/09/02 LAUSITZRING Germany 06/23/02 MISANO San Marino 07/14/02 LAGUNA SECA United States 07/28/02 BRANDS HATCH Great Britain 09/01/02 OSCHERS-LEBEN Germany 09/08/02 ASSEN Netherlands 09/29/02 IMOLA Italy