After incredible rides at the Nürburgring in Germany both Noriyuki Haga and Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) will be relishing another chance to compete for top honours at Round 8 of the World Superbike Championship at the Misano circuit on the Adriatic coast of Italy this weekend.
Despite suffering from a broken right collarbone, plated and pinned before the Nürburgring race, Haga won both races in the German round, only just beating his team-mate Corser in race two. Arguably Corser looked favourite for the win until the track surface started to become wet, but it was still a miracle for Haga to be anywhere near a double win so soon after his big crash in America.
Both Haga and Corser have recent podium experience at Misano, each taking a second place finish on their Yamaha YZF-R1 machinery last year. Corser is a previous Misano race winner, but despite breaking the barrier of 30 individual WSB race victories last time out, Haga has still to add Misano to his list of winning venues.
After some tough early rounds Corser has been reborn as a potential winning force in the championship following strong podium results in both America and Germany. At Misano he was a double winner in the 2000 season on what used to be a predominantly left-handed circuit.
Last year the Misano venue underwent massive overhauls in almost all regards, with the most obvious one being a new track layout in places, allied to a complete change in the direction of racing. Previously Misano was an anti-clockwise circuit, featuring several long left-hand corners. In the new era it is a layout dominated by a succession of right-handers at the end of the back straight, which runs parallel to the nearby Autostrada.
Haga is aware that every performance counts as he tries to make up ground on championship leader Troy Bayliss. "So far so good. The double win in Germany, after my injury and operation in America, has made me a bit more relaxed. My first aim in Germany was to not crash and get some points, so to get a double win was a surprise. I was riding a little bit carefully because everyone around me over the weekend was saying 'don't crash!' So I was not riding too hard, but we still had a very successful outcome."
"Misano was a turning point last year so it will be an important race again this year and I have to be careful not to make a mistake. All the other riders have been fighting each other, making slip ups and we have already been unlucky and then lucky again. It's very competitive for everybody and we are out to get as many points as possible to the end. We have half the season left and to be 55 points from the lead is not so bad. But we know we cannot make any mistakes any more. All the team have been working hard towards Misano, so I am looking forward to it."
Corser's winning pedigree has been proven many times in his long WSB career, and he came close to his first Yamaha win at Misano last year. "Misano should be good and the bike is coming along fine. It will be better than last year and we got a good result at Misano then, so it should be good. I do like the track and it's good to be going in the opposite direction to the old version. It's like a completely different circuit. There have been a few races there since the tarmac went down and the track surface is pretty much bedded in now. Last year it was very new and pretty 'green'. There is always a good crowd at Misano and it's a fun race for the spectators. We're also expecting it to be as hot as ever in the sunshine."
Technically speaking - Misano according to Massimo Meregalli (Yamaha Motor Italia Team Manager)"We treat every race in the calendar the same but because our team is based in Italy it does mean Misano is more work and there are always simply more things to do. But to race in Misano is always a good thing. After our good results in Germany we have a really high level of team morale. We are, like always, trying to improve our machine and we would like to do all the things we can to be more competitive again in Misano. It is a very different place from the Nürburgring. We will consider the set-up we used last year for the Misano race, but when you find a good base like we have now, usually we don't change it so much from race-to-race. I think we are ready and both riders are determined. We can do a god job."
Shinichi Nakatomi (Yamaha Team YZF) is currently in the same 20th position he has monopolised for some time, while Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha GMT94) and David Checa (Yamaha GMT94) maintained 23rd and 24th places overall after the Nürburgring races.
WSSFor the past two years Yamaha World Supersport riders have proved unbeatable at the Misano circuit, and that fills Broc Parkes and Fabien Foret, from the Yamaha World Supersport Racing Team, with confidence as they attempt to go from championship contenders to championship leaders again.
After a somewhat disjoined first half of the season, despite both riders having already tasted victory on the all-new Yamaha YZF-R6, the championship lead is within touching distance for both Parkes and Foret. Second overall, Fabien is only four points from championship leader Andrew Pitt, while Broc is only seven points from the lead.
Misano is a well-known venue for each rider, even in its more modern reversed layout, and Parkes in particular will have previous data still fresh in his mind from the weekend when he raced for the same team last year, on the 2007 YZF-R6.
The current championship standings show how close the 2008 WSS contest is shaping up to be, with Pitt on 88 points, Foret second on 84, Josh Brookes on 83 and Joan Lascorz and Parkes locked together on 81 points.
Three no scores have kept Massimo Roccoli (Yamaha Team Italia Lorenzini by Leoni) in the lower reaches of the top ten so far, but as the race winner at Misano on 2006, Roccoli is fully motivated to return to the top step at one of three Italian-based races on the 2008 calendar.
Foret had to settle for an off-podium finish in the Nürburgring race in mid-June, but the 2002 champion sees Misano as the perfect place to get back into the lead:"I hope for better things at Misano than I had at the Nürburgring and it is one of the better tracks for me anyway. Most of the time I have had a good result there and even with the new track and riding a different bike things were not so bad last year. I feel confident and I am going to try and win the race. We have to from now on because we need to make some more points in the championship. It is a good track for Yamaha and it should be less difficult for me on this bike than it was on the other bike last season."
Parkes, now recovered fully from some painful early season injuries, said; "It would have been fantastic to have won at Nürburgring, and I felt we had done enough to get the victory there. We lost a bit of drive in the last few laps, and I had to take third. The main thing to remember is that we ran at a really high pace in that race and we will be out to make sure we can do it again at Misano, only finish on top this time."
Wilco Zeelenberg, the Yamaha World Supersport Team Manager, sees the Misano round as a strong venue for the team's YZF-R6 machine. "It was strange for Broc to have had the trouble at the end of the Nürburgring race, and we were surprised by that. So we felt bad that we didn't win at first, then we realised that we were lucky to finish the race at all. Broc was very strong in that race and I think the riders who were behind did well to follow him for so long. I think our bike is very good in the top end, and we have a wide range, but the best of the other bikes are still very good. We have a good package and we know that Pitt in particular has a strong package also. We have to win races now because we are still right in there. Both riders like Misano very much and have done well there. The Misano circuit is not the most difficult place to find a setup for and even last year we had no issue with the track being completely changed around. So our 2007 data will still be useful when we get there. Let's hope we can get up to speed quickly."
David De Gea (Yamaha Spain World Supersport Team) is still looking for points as he recovers from injury but David Salom (Yamaha Spain World Supersport Team) is still looking to come back to the fray after missing Germany, and wants to break into the regions of double figure points scores.
SUPERSTOCKMichele Pirro (Yamaha Team Italia Lorenzini by Leoni), Sylvain Barrier (Yamaha YZF Junior Team) and Claudio Corti (Yamaha Motor Italia Junior Team) are Yamaha's usual entrants in the big Superstock class, while Loris Baz (YZF Yamaha Junior Team) is the best placed official Yamaha Superstock 600 rider, leading the championship and being the only rider to have scored two wins so far.
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