WSBK: Biaggi's Monza double, Corser scores BMW podium
Biaggi, Haslam and Corser celebrate race two at Monza.
Biaggi made some radical changes to his rear suspension after his race one win and eventually ran out the clear winner of race two. This was his second double of the year, the first coming in Portimao.
The Roman scored the race one win with a well-judged front running ride, albeit with several riders for company through all 18 laps. He kept his pace and consistency on his vee four machine to lead Yamaha Sterilgarda duo James Toseland and Cal Crutchlow across the line, finishing 0.247 seconds ahead of Toseland.
Haslam was only 0.958 seconds behind Biaggi, in fourth, with Leon Camier, Biaggi’s teammate, fifth. Ruben Xaus (BMW) was sixth, Michel Fabrizio seventh for Ducati Xerox. Troy Corser went eighth and Tom Sykes ninth on his Kawasaki Racing Team machine.
Biaggi took his second win of the day in fine style after closest challenger Crutchlow suffered an oil leak and crashed in the closing laps of the race.
The former four-time 250GP champion eventually won by 4.5 seconds from arch-rival Haslam, which was an important one and sends the WSB paddock to Kyalami confident of more close action between this year’s two most consistently fast riders.
Haslam now has 181 points to Biaggi’s 178 as he struggled with a sore wrist from a couple of hairy moments in the second race.
Third place for Corser was a historic first podium for BMW in WSBK racing, in only the second season of full-on competition for the S 1000RR in the production-based series. The Australian is now seventh in the championship.
Camier was a lonely fourth for Aprilia in race two and an aggressive fifth from Kawasaki rider Sykes rounded out a day of new high points for many riders and teams.
James Toseland was taken to hospital to have a CT scan after suffering concussion in a high-speed crash, with Jonathan Rea spraining his ankle and Ruben Xaus escaping the turn one collision without injury.
In contrast to Biaggi’s great day some leading lights suffered in the final analysis, with Carlos Checa 14th and 11th in the races, as he ties for fourth place on 110 points with Rea, who did not score today. Toseland is fifth on 106, Haga sixth on 100.
The Supersport race, held over 16 laps, was won by a flag-to-flag show of speed and consistency from Parkalgar Honda rider Eugene Laverty. He won by 2.8 seconds from Hannspree Ten Kate Honda rider Kenan Sofuoglu. Third, and only just behind Sofuoglu after he made a mistake on the penultimate lap, was Joan Lascorz (Motocard.com Kawasaki).
Sofuoglu’s teammate Michele Pirro was the first Italian rider home, in fourth place, holding off Katsuaki Fujiwara (Kawasaki Motocard.com) and French rider Matthieu Lagrive, who was the first Triumph rider in the classification. In the championship, things are now very tight, with Lascorz still leading, on 101 points, while Sofuoglu has 97 and Laverty 91.
Ayrton Badovini (BMW Motorrad Italia) secured the Superstock 1000 race win from pole but only after a fight with early fast man, Sylvain Barrier. The Frenchman was to crash his Garnier racing BMW and lose any chance of points, leaving Badovini ahead of eventual second place rider Michele Magnoni (SCI Honda Garvie Image) second and Daniele Berretta, Badovini’s teammate, third.
In the championship, Badovini has 100 points, Magnoni 47 and Maxime Berger 46.
On the occasion of the fifth round of the Superbike World Championship, championship partner Alfa Romeo presented their brand-new race Safety Car: a Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde equipped with a powerful 235 HP 1750 TBi engine, a model that will certainly attract the attention of the general public and which will have widespread visibility for race-going spectators as well as through the distribution network and their clients.
Click here for detailed results
SUPERBIKE RIDER QUOTES:
Max Biaggi: “This track is very long and it’s very easy to make a little mistake plus when you have your rhythm you stay with it, and it’s difficult to go faster and easier to go slower. Anyway I’m happy with the result, it was a close race. I’m happy for me and my team. It’s an unbelievable result, it looks like we are achieving our goal. Here there is also the President of our group and it’s been a great weekend for everyone.”
Leon Haslam: “Today was a hard day and I’m happy to leave Monza still leading the title race. Max was strong here and I knew it was going to be tough pair of races. The podium in race two was very hard work, but I didn’t want to miss out on a podium today and kept battling away. I had a really big ‘moment’ in race two and was way out of the saddle twice in the space of a fraction of a second. Somehow I stayed on the bike, but it was a very close thing! After Cal crashed, Troy kept me on my toes, but Max was too far in front for me to catch so I just made sure of runner-up spot. I did something to my wrist when I had my ‘moment’ and it felt pretty sore, but I managed to carry one to the end. In race one, I lost contact with the leaders and then had a bit of a grip problem for the last four or five laps and couldn’t get out of the corners as fast as I wanted. We made some little suspension changes- just a few clicks here and there – for race two and the bike was definitely better to ride.”
Troy Corser: “I knew that a podium was possible after Assen. The bike has been working better for me recently and I expected a podium here or at the next round. I’m extremely happy with the bike’s performance today, particularly in the second race. I was able to race the track and not think about what I was doing. The bike was spinning quite a lot in the first race, so we made some radical changes for race two. It’s not the thing we’d normally do, but I felt we had nothing to lose and our gamble paid off! The braking performance was much better today and I felt confident stopping the bike. The only area where we lost out on today is exiting the chicanes. There, some of the other’s can get on the gas a lot quicker than me. This afternoon, my bike was a complete package and I felt in control and could run consistently fast – especially once I got used to the way the brakes were working. For me, race two today was one of my best ever rides. I made a good start and for a moment I thought I was going to get all the way to the front. I was smart going into the first chicane and made sure I got through it safely. Later, when I was behind Leon, I got water on my visor and thought it was raining. I used all my tear-offs before I realised that the water was coming from Leon’s bike! I thought his bike might blow up, so I eased up a little because I didn’t want to get caught up in any crash, but that allowed him to just pull away a little. I chased after him as best I could in the last couple of laps and we had a really good fight. In the end, he just had enough to beat me to the line, but it was pretty close. Today has been a fantastic day for us all at BMW and I want to thank everybody involved, including the people back at the workshop. I knew this bike had potential and now that we’ve taken our first podium, I’m sure that there’ll be more to come.”
Tom Sykes: “In race two I got a good start and stayed out of trouble but I was not quite able to make the pace early on. Obviously Nori made a few strong passes, and I let him do a little bit of the work for a while. Then my lap times improved and I had a go at passing him, but he came straight back at me, in typical Nori style. With two to go I made a pass and get my head down, then on the final corner I rode defensively and pulled off a good result in fifth. All credit to Kawasaki and the team, it is very well deserved and a good confidence booster for us for the rest of the year.”
Chris Vermeulen: “In each race I got a very good start, but in the first race we had tried to make a few small set-up changes on the bike, but it was in the wrong direction. Physically it made the bike very hard to handle, to change direction, so I was very tired after race one. My lap times were a lot better in race two and the bike was good, it was just my leg that is still the main thing stopping me from racing to my full potential. But I was happy with the progress in race two and racing with someone like Max Neukirchner, so it wasn’t too bad.”
James Toseland: “The first race was a good strong race, I just want to congratulate the team, it’s their home race and to get two of us on the podium is great. Max Biaggi rode a great race, he had a strong bike here and we expected him to go well, he didn’t put a foot wrong. I was hoping on the last lap he was going to make a slight mistake, just enough for me to get alongside but he didn’t so fair play to him. We’re getting better with each race, moving in the right direction and it’s getting frustrating finishing in second and third now!”
Cal Crutchlow: “I felt like I put together a really solid first race, we didn’t get the best of starts but made up for it and got stuck in. All credit to Yamaha, they’ve done a good job to give James and I a competitive package so it was great for us both to deliver them the podiums here for their home round. It was a strong result and we rode well so I was looking forward to the second race. I started really well and didn’t take long to get tucked in behind Max, I knew exactly what I was doing and had my strategy sorted to pass him on the last lap. Incredibly some stones flew up off his back wheel, I was so close behind I felt some hit my helmet and unfortunately a big one made a hole in my oil cooler. I made it through another lap, but coming into the first chicane it must have reached my back tyre and I went straight down.”
Sylvain Guintoli: “Generally the weekend has ended not so badly. I enjoyed the second race because I was involved in a really good fight with Nori Haga and Tom Sykes. I managed to pass Nori right towards the end, but then I made a very small mistake in the last turn and he got me back. Seventh is not so bad after how the weekend began, but I have learnt that I – or me and my team – have to manage practice and qualifying better and get into a good, consistent rhythm as soon as we can. Not doing that means a low grid position and this Championship has so many good riders and bikes that you cannot afford to be way down the grid if you want to be a contender. I think I probably could’ve got fifth today if it hadn’t been for a crash right in front of me on the opening lap. I had to take avoiding action and go straight on at the first chicane and lost time in the process. But I fought hard and caught up the guys ahead, before my good battle with Tom and Nori. I am happy with my performance in race two and now I want to build on that and be much better at the start of a race weekend.”
Max Neukirchner: “The chatter was really bad in race one but the changes we made improved the bike a lot for race two. Unfortunately, as we went into the Ascari chicane on the first lap, Chris Vermeulen was on the inside and made a mistake which forced me right across the gravel. When I got back on the track I was in last place, b ut the changes to the bike allowed me to brake deeper into the corners, with better grip levels and I could get on the throttle faster on the exit. It was an improvement and we’ve learned some more this weekend but the results were still not good. We need to work on braking even deeper and getting the bike upright earlier, and we’ll try to do that next weekend in South Africa.”
Jonathan Rea: “Well it’s been a bad weekend for our assault on the championship. I made a small mistake at the end of the back straight in the first race when I was trying to avoid Leon [Haslam] and Cal [Crutchlow]. Then race two ended before it had begun when I got skittled off going in the first corner. But I’m not down in the dumps about it. It’s times like these that you can really tell the strength of a team and I know that this team is really very strong. They gave me a good bike this weekend but we co uldn’t really make the most of it. I’m actually really excited at the challenge ahead, because we were able to make up quite a lot of points in the middle and end of last season. We’ll all pull together now and I fully intend to get back to winning ways at Kyalami next weekend.”
Michel Fabrizio: “Race 1 was going quite well; it’s only a shame that we don’t have the top speed to be able to stick with the guys on the straight, with more engine power I could have done a lot better. In Race 2 I ran off when those guys crashed at the first chicane of the first lap and I tried to keep riding but I couldn’t get the bike into gear, and then I slipped. It was tough out there today but at least we take home some valuable points and hope that things go better at Kyalami.”
Noriyuki Haga: “In both races I was having a lot of difficulty turning the bike and didn’t have enough grip at the rear. In Race 1 I was having to put it right down on its side to get it to turn as I wanted and this of course meant that I couldn’t keep pace with those ahead of me. We changed a few things before Race 2 and improved the situation a little. Grip was good in the first five laps or so but from mid-race it was really hard, as the bike was drifting wide and was hard to control. In the end I’m quite satisfied with sixth position, as it was tough here this weekend.”
Broc Parkes: “We were still struggling with lots of chatter. We improved the bike a little bit for the races but in race one we ran through the chicane twice and had to take a ride through penalty. But I stayed out there. We got a point in race two, which was something.”
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