Mat Mladin put the hurt on today in Superbike qualifying at Daytona. image by keith patti

(Ducati's Ben Bostrom did attend the press conference)

Ben Spies (#11 Yoshimura Suzuki, second quick)

Q Ben, it's been a dogfight between you and your teammate for the last year, and now it looks like it's renewing this year. What was your expectation coming into the qualifying here today?

A It wasn't really a dogfight last year. I just kind of lucked out a couple of races. We've got the Yoshimura Suzuki working really good. It feels like a different motorcycle from last year, with the new front forks we've got. It's kind of bittersweet, qualifying. I was happy I did a 7.5, or whatever, on race tires. I tried to throw on a softer race tire and I had a really good first split, knew I was down a couple of tenths on my second split, I ran a little wide and was really trying to dig the last two splits. Then I went through the chicane and rode like a professional novice. Completely. That was horrendous. I still did the 7.5 with that. But it was okay. It seems like the bike works a bit - it's definitely slower with race tires, but it works better with race tires. So that's kind of what we've been working on for the last couple of sessions. We did what we could qualifying, but it just wasn't there. We should have a good race setup.

Q When you go out to qualify, do you look for somebody to run with?

A No. I try to actually - I like to ride by myself a lot. This morning's session, the bike blew up, and we lost about half a session. We put in a new motor, and I guess we had some oil left in the pipe, and it was smoking, so they pulled me in. We lost a little bit of that session, which was kind of frustrating. We just needed more time to sort out tires for the race stuff. It didn't mess up the qualifying tires or anything. But as I said, we just didn't get it done. I made a couple of mistakes, and that was it.

Mat Mladin (#1 Yoshimura Suzuki, pole position)

Q Mat, tell us about your run. Were you able to get a draft from anyone, or was it pretty much by yourself?

A I did a few faster laps by myself, but beforehand, we measured up against a few guys just to see what the speed was like, and things like that. The GSX-R is working beautifully. It's fast. It's working well. We've got a nice package to start the season with.

Q What kind of tires were you running when you set your pole time?

A The best lap was done on the same tire that these guys done their best laps on in the test here in December. It seems to offer a little bit more grip. So that's what our best lap was done on. I went out there at the end with the tire that we're going to race on, and it felt pretty good, too. I just got caught up in the middle of a lap with someone and had to stop it. But it was a good session. We didn't get to test here in December. We were just trying to recover from surgery last year. It's definitely getting faster each session. We've got some stuff that we didn't test last year.

Q Not having the test session at Daytona like you usually do, do you think that puts you at any disadvantage?

A We haven't been here for 12 months, and the bike is certainly very different to what it was 12 months ago, when at that stage it was a brand new motorcycle. For sure it puts you at a little bit of a disadvantage, but the racetrack still goes the same way. We've got more grip on the infield, which shows in the lap times. Seven flat compared to 8.2 last year. Half of that's the racetrack, and half's the development of the motorcycle. And the tires, of course. For sure, yesterday we had a few things to run through, tires we hadn't seen before. We had to get through them, and I done a couple of long runs, and it was good.

Q Are you guys using the same suspension components as last year?

A I think Ben's using a new fork. I'm still on the same stuff as last year.

Q How about race strategy? Do you have a strategy in mind?

A I don't think there's any strategy. Strategy can go out the window at the green light. I think most of us recall my starts from last year, at the end of the season. We don't have much of a strategy. We know what we need to do if we don't get the start. We know what we need to do if we do get the start. We'll just play it by ear. There's about three tires out there that pretty much do very similar lap times. One of them's a lot more hardy than the other one, and stronger tire, and that's the one we'll race on. I think the lap times this year - the tires are good. I think the lap times are going to stay pretty consistent throughout the race, unlike previous years where they've dropped off a bit.

Q Is this a pure sprint race now?

A Yes. It was - the 200 was a sprint race in the end, the last few years, for sure. Just a sprint race. In 2004 we did three pit stops. That's a sprint race, fourteen lap sprint, four of them.

Q General question. Mat, there's been a lot of talk in World Superbike about traction control. Your general thoughts?

A It's funny you bring up that issue. As we've seen in a lot of the press, I think Toseland came out the other day and said Ducati has had traction control for a long time. They've been using it a long time. Obviously my biggest critic in this paddock was Eric Bostrom who was saying I had traction control, and all the rest of it, when he was riding the motorcycle that everyone knows had traction control, especially now. Corser's now come out and said Suzuki has traction control for 2006. He's never used it before. The bottom line is, our rules state you can't have traction control. When smoke comes off a tire, typically if you have got it, it's not working very well. And I know there's smoke coming off a lot of tires out there. Except the Ducati, of course.

Q What about launch control? Your general thoughts?

A [Laughing] I need it. I don't have it. I mean, we seen on the sheet I definitely need launch control. But no, we don't have it. We - I've had some issues with the clutch, just because of the way I like my clutch to work. We're using a different clutch for '06, and it's one that by the end of the Fontana test a few weeks ago, I felt comfortable with it. In Australia we went back and forth between our regular clutch and the new clutch, and I finished up in Australia, testing at Phillip Island, with our clutch from last year. I thought, "This is going to be it for another year." But they turned out some more stuff for the new one, and the clutch is just brilliant. It's just a much, much better system. Getting off the line now is just so much easier.

Q Do you think launch control exists in World Superbike, after what we've seen?

A I don't know. To be honest with you, I don't really watch it. I don't follow it too much. Especially now, after they all got the shits when I smoked them at Phillip Island.