World Superbike Championships: Suzuki Dominates again

Noriyuki Haga, Yamaha Motor Italia, Race 1 - fifth, Race 2 - fourth place, now seventh in championship with 40 points: “OK, we got fifth in race one and fourth in race two but it’s not good enough for me, because as a racer you always want to win. I have to remember that the bike is still developing. We have only finished three meetings so we need to improve more, step-by-step. I think it will be better though. We are improving and compared to Friday we have made big progress. Now we have a test at Monza this week and this should give us a good chance to prepare for the team’s home race.”

Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha Motor Italia Team Coordinator: “Before we arrived here I said that we would be happy with podiums and we nearly got them. On Friday we were looking almost looking at a disaster, but immediately on Saturday we improved a lot. But both riders finished race two. Andrew’s machine had a small problem in that race. In the last two laps he slowed up, with a misfire. But considering our position on Friday, we cannot be too disappointed.”

Andrew Pitt, Yamaha Motor Italia, Race 1 - crashed, Race 2 – eighth place: “I tried to stay with them in race two but I just lost one tenth each lap. The more laps I had, the more I had to be careful. After a few laps the rear tyre started to lose performance but the electrical problem at the end probably cost me three places.”

Norick Abe, Yamaha Motor France, Race 1 - crashed, Race 2 – fifth: “It was unlucky to crash in race one as I had a good feeling on the bike. I knew 100 percent that I could get third but there was a rider immediately in front of me so I wanted second; it’s better than third. Maybe I pushed the front too hard, so I crashed. Race two was held in very different conditions, a warmer track for example, and the rear grip was less from the beginning. That was more of a disappointment than race one.”

Sebastien Gimbert, Yamaha Motor France, Race 1 - sixth, Race 2 – eleventh: “In the last couple of laps of race two the engine overheated and I lost a lot of power. That made it incredibly difficult for me. There was also a big change in the track conditions between race one and race two, and that made the bike slide a lot more in the second one. Race one was OK, a good finish in sixth.”

Martial Garcia, Yamaha Motor France, Team Manager: “Not so bad. Of course in the second race less people crashed so the places were worse but we are happy because we have made the chassis better, gained some confidence, even if we have lost a possible podium. Now we have to work on the engine some more. Sebastien’s engine overheated, so we need to inspect the radiator. Because it lost power as it heated up, he dropped down positions. But we have shown again we are at a high level and we are fifth in the world championship with Abe. This is not so bad for the start of the season.”

Pierfrancesco Chili Klaffi Honda CBR1000RR: “My left arm and shoulder are finished after two races. I have no grip in my hand and it was impossible to brake hard any more. But I finished both races, and took points. After breaking my collarbone, I was maybe not going to be able to race here, so we should be happy with the points.”

Ben Bostrom, Renegade Honda KOJI, Race 1 – eleventh, Race 2 – sixth: “That felt a lot better, it was nice to run up there in the top six but I need to get more aggressive on the starts though,” he smiled. “I was a little tentative the first race then in race two I was a little better. I got behind some of those faster guys but could not quite get past them. It was frustrating but it was fun watching Kagayama in front of me. We said we would come here and turn it around and to some extent we did. Now we are in the top ten, I want to be in the top five at Monza.”

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