Corser increases WSB lead, while Yamaha takes first win

Laconi and Toseland could only manage seventh and eighth in the second appointment of the day after fading away from the leaders due to tyre problems. This race, rerun over the full 20 laps and not on aggregate, had to be restarted after a delay of 45 minutes to clean up oil on the track following an incident but in the two laps before the red flags came out, Laconi had made a blistering start to head the field and was leading from Corser and Toseland before the interruption. Toseland continued: “In the first start the tyres were unbelievably good and after all the effort we’d made I would have won that race for sure, but there’s nothing good I can say about the second race. After lap 3, the tyres were just not performing as well and there was nothing I could do. It’s a pity because with Corser’s results today it looks as if we’re not going to be able to win this championship now.”

Laconi added: “I struggled a bit with the gearing over the weekend, that was my fault but we made a change and it was a lot better. After two laps I found myself in the lead and that was fantastic but on the restart after half distance the front started to slide a lot. I was trying my best just to stay on the bike, because it was so hard. I finished seventh, which means I’m disappointed for myself and for Ducati because they’ve done a good job. Now I’m already thinking about the next race, I will take my fight to Brands and do much better. The only positive thing from this weekend is that I gained one point on Vermeulen!”

That Noriyuki Haga rode a sensational race two to give the YZF-R1 its first victory in the Superbike World Championship is without question – what’s really at question is what enabled him to go so much faster in the second race than the first, given that he used exactly the same suspension settings, tyres, and overall race set-up. In the first race the set-up had seen him finish seventh, some 13 seconds from the lead and a distant three seconds behind the Ducati of sixth-placed Lanzi.

Yet in the second race the Japanese Yamaha Motor Italia star gave a magical display to charge through from 16th place on the grid to take a lead he would never lose on lap seven, overtaking series leader Corser and establishing more than a three second lead at the chequered flag.

Haga’s win, Yamaha’s first in the class since the same rider won race two at Assen in September 2000 on the YZF-R7, came after a troubled weekend in qualifying that saw him starting way down the grid. However, even despite missing out on superpole the 29-year-old maintained that the settings of his R1 were ideal for race conditions. A lack of grip held him back as he raced to seventh in the opening race, before using exactly the same set-up and tyre combination to blast to victory in the second.

Chris Vermeulen had a disappointing weekend at Brno on his Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR and although he scored the best individual result for a Honda rider, with a seventh in the first race and third in race two, his major rival for second place in Regis Laconi did only one point better.

His Winston Ten Kate team-mate Karl Muggeridge (Honda CBR1000RR) was 13th and ninth, and had to fight hard in a melee of sometimes eight riders behind the leaders. Max Neukirchner (Klaffi Honda CBR1000RR) had another hard raceday, after a dazzling third place Superpole qualification. Only 14th in race one, then a retiree from race two, the German rider is 12th in the championship overall.

Yamaha Motor France’s Norick Abe almost made it two R1s on the podium in race two, narrowly missing out on third when passed by Chris Vermeulen (Honda) with two laps remaining. It was the Japanese rider’s best finish of his short superbike career and equaled his best result at the Czech circuit, matching his fourth place finish in the 2001 500cc Czech Grand Prix. Earlier in the day Abe finished ninth while team-mate Sebastien Gimbert, still struggling with an injured leg from a crash at Silverstone, was 19th and 17th.

...continued