Normal service resumes at Monza.

Two weeks after their complete drubbing at the hands of a bunch of Japanese wildcard riders, the World Superbike regulars were back out in force at Monza with Ducati's Troy Bayliss comfortably in charge.

Of all the manufacturers currently competing on a factory basis in the World Superbike Championship, Ducati were the hardest hit of all in Sugo two weeks ago as then-Championship leader Troy Bayliss suffered the indignity of starting from the fifth row of the grid and then the pleasure of engaging in battle 20-year old rookie James Toseland on a bike not quite as developed as his own Infostrada machine for a paltry one point in the second race as he watched his points lead fall back into the hands of Aprilia's Troy Corser.

It was therefore no surprise that Bayliss was in a particularly determined mood when practice began for the fifth round of the 2001 World Superbike Championship at the historic Monza circuit near Milan in Italy, the Australian comfortably taking Provisional Pole position around the high-speed 5.770km circuit with a best time of 1 minute 48.677 seconds.

Fastest throughout first qualifying, Bayliss' time was nearly eight tenths quicker than that of factory Ducati L&M rider Ben Bostrom, looking at home along Monza's long, blasting straights. The charismatic Californian ended the day with a best time of 1 minute 49.421 seconds although he was confident of going faster on Saturday after easing back to focus on race settings later in the afternoon when the track temperature was not at a premium.

Current points leader Troy Corser showed how much the Aprilia RSV1000 has improved over the past year by taking third place on the provisional front row with a 1 minute 49.622 seconds best lap, the last rider to get within a second of Bayliss. Last year at Monza, Corser found the Aprilia to be lacking the necessary grunt to keep up with the leaders in a typical slip-streaming race and both he and then-team-mate Alessandro Antonello were forced to take enormous risks at places like Monza and Hockenheim to avoid getting left behind.

This time around there looked to be no such problems and Corser will be a genuine threat for both Superpole and Sunday's two races as might Antonello who, on his first appearance away from the test-track this year, recorded a praiseworthy sixth fastest time just three tenths of a second slower than Corser.

Just as impressive as far as Antonello was concerned was the fact that defending WSBK Champion and 2000 Race Two winner Colin Edwards was just one tenth up the road in fifth place provisionally with Neil Hodgson, last man on the provisional front row only two tenths clear albeit more than a second away from Bayliss.

Pierfrancesco Chili, the man with whom Edwards shared the Monza spoils twelve months ago, was a gritty seventh with a time of 1 minute 50.225 seconds on the Suzuki GSX750, a bike still not entirely happy at being ridden at podium finishing pace. However the bike will have to like it this weekend for Chili will undoubtedly be giving it 150 per cent all the way in front of his adoring home crowd and the veteran Italian will certainly be one of the star's of the show when Sunday comes around.

Just a fraction behind Chili on the outside of row two came the privateer Team Pedercini Ducati of team-boss Lucio Pedercini, the 29-year-old Italian putting in his best WSBK performance of any kind since the Race One lottery at Phillip Island last season where he finished fourth.

The three-bike Pedercini outfit's spirits were lifted higher with Marco Borciani's tenth spot and Mauro Sanchini's 16th place and the team join GSE Racing as the only non-factory outfits to have their full complement of riders provisionally qualified for Superpole. Austrian Robert Ulm also finished inside the first 16 on the Remus Racing Ducati as 996's claimed nine of the 16 Superpole slots on Friday.

Akira Yanagawa led the two-bike Kawasaki assault with ninth quickest time although the Japanese rider was hoping for better speed after challenging for victory here one year ago while his Team Fuchs team0-mate Gregorio Lavilla was understandably a tad circumspect on his return to the track where he broke his pelvis last season and was only twelfth fastest. Fellow Spaniard Ruben Xaus in the third factory Ducati just pipped his countryman by one tenth of a second to finish the day in eleventh place although as the WSBK circuit returns to the tracks he knows well.

James Toseland and Stephane Chambon headed Sanchini's for the final three provisional Superpole slots edging out the Pirelli-shod DFX Ducati of Steve Martin and the last two remaining factory riders, Tadayuki Okada and Regis Laconi. Mysteriously both the 500cc Grand Prix veterans found it hard to adapt to the bigger 750cc World Superbikes at a track not recently visited by the MotoGP boys (and girls) and while both should improve substantially tomorrow in final qualifying, neither want to be mired back on the fifth row of the grid when all 32 bikes entered this weekend blast away into the newly re-profiled Rettifilio chicane.