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" World Superbike Championship Round 8: Misano Adriatlco fJ!l®f?f]@ @C!!J[j)@~@®[?{J @!Ju@[JfJD@IJ®fJWJ!Ju!J@9 fJ]®C!!J[JiJ@ &3 [?®[Jr§;)(1f)~ fX]@\!l@[fD@..J...-=@ _ _ FoUrth win or third win? It depended 00 how many wheel spindles you counted, I suppose, but for Fabien Foret his third official victory of the year (Valencia and Monza were the oth· ers) was not just welcome· it was wonderful. Especially when his main championship challengers had either fallen or been bumped to the· wayside, and from leading poSitions to boot. Especially when he had been disqualified from the previous Lausitz race, having outraced everyone else there, too. Especially when it gave you back the championship lead you lost after round one of the series. and had just regained before being disqualified. An action-filled 23·lap race was littered with incidents and held in steaming, sweltering conditions like every other Misano event this year. This was to play a big part in some rider's fortunes, relegating some to the status of bystanders to the podium ceremony, and reducing others to gibbering wrecks, suffering from d.ehydration. A multi·rider fight for the first places developed almost from the start; except for Stephane Chambon, who dived away into the lead on the first tum and looked like he would do one of his front·running spedals. In fact, he temporarily did, taking a 0.6 of a second gap in a single lap· an age in Supersport terms. Falling at the apex of the Del Rio hairpin on lap three, Chambon remounted, finished 13th and dropped to second in the championship. His crash allowed the ominously consistent and level-headed Andrew Pitt into the lead, and despite holding his pace well for a couple of laps, he was overhauled by Foret on the fourth tour. He was to regain the lead again, but lose it when he was overtaken· hard· by Belgarda Yamaha's Paolo Casoli at the Querela right·hand hairpi,n on lap eight. A melee followed as an off-line Pitt slowed, looked behind and was then knocked off the track (he claimed) by James Whitham, Casoli's tealTU'l'late, at the first significant chicane, the Vari· ante Arena. The World Champion rumbled across the grass wheels down, as he tried desperately to maintain his position in the top echelon. He could not get back i,n the slipstream, how· ever, and finished an eventual sixth. The race order looked like it would settle for a spell, until lap 15 when Foret was attacked by a confident Casoli, who reckoned he was up for a home win, such was the ease with which he was lapping fast· heat aside. His lead was short·lived, and when his tires went off with great suddenness, he slipped back to fifth within two laps. On the 17th circuit, Katsuaki Fujiwara, on the tail end of the five leaders, rode to sudden prominence, timing his run to confuse those who were feeling their tires go off undemeath them. He fairly seized the race by the hair for five laps, leading with conviction, until two lurid slides allowed Foret to pounce. After some to·ing and fro·ing, Foret held the advantage going into the final chicane, and over the line for the 23rd time and his third win. "I am so happy with this result, especially after what happened at Lausitz . which I will try and forget about now," Foret said. "I pushed very hard for the win and I would like to thank my team for giving me the bike to win and staying motivated after Germany. It was a very hard race and it would have been easy to finish third or fourth, but this result is very good for the championship." Behind the Honda vs. Suzuki battle, the battling WhJtham eventually won an Intemecine Yamaha War. Even with cooked Dunlops, the Englishman just held off the Yamaha Germany R6 of Christian Kellner, who had adopted a watching brief on the tail of the leading bunch for much of the race. Casoli, a hero to the assembled Italian masses, ran home a safe, but desperately sad, fifth. A flurry of drama In the earlier parts of the race saw fortunes rise and fall for the cham· pionship's main contenders. "With five laps to go, I felt very happy and it was good for me to follow Fabien as he is very fast on the straights," Casoli said. "But in the last five laps, it is impossible with my rear tire, as between laps 18 and 19 I lose 50 percent of my grip. The change is not grad· ual, it is dramatic, and from there it is not possible stay at the s.ame pace. I am very dis· appointed because I think that, until lap 18, I can win. Now it is Brands Hatch, which is a circuit that I like very much but do not always do so well at." Jorg Teuchert crashed out of contention on lap six, while in a top· J 0 finishing position. Pushing maybe too hard on a track he thought he knew intimately. With Pitt sixth, Christophe Cogan was seventh, ahead of the Van Zon weekend pai.ling of Chris Vermeulen and stand·in Robert UIm, who fluffed his start and struggled from then on. Alessio Corradi dropped from a one-time fifth to 10th, and never even blamed his blond dreadlock hair extensions. Stressful and meager points scoring days for both Pitt and Cbambon has tightened up the championship table, with Foret the new top dog on 118, Stephane Chambon second on 115, and Pitt third on 113. Fujiwara has even dealt himself into genuine contention on 104 points . an unthink· able possibility even two races ago. But that's what 45 points in two races does for you. "In the first four or five laps, I had many problems with my rear tire, so I decided to stay behind and try and save my tire," FUjiwara said. "At the end of the race, J tried very hard to pass, but I made a big mistake and nearly highsided twice on the last lap. Fabien is very fast, but I tried my best. This is a very enjoyable race for me and a good result on the track." Fabien Foret (89) won an epic World SUpersport battle in Mlsano. 10 JULY 3,2002' cue • e n .. "" s son, had to settle for a pair of fifth· place finishes on his L&M-sponsored Ducati. His first race was marred by a poor tire choice. "I picked the wrong tire, different to Neil and Nori, and I couldn't even lean the bike over the way I wanted to. I chose a different rear tire for the second race, but unfortunately the result was the same. I was just spin· ning the rear wheel coming onto the back straight." Another less·than·sparkling, lessthan-satisfying day for Bostrom, who looked so good in practice. He needs to feel the gray tarmac of home under his knee pucks again, and in three weekends' time, he'll get it. Pier-Francesco Chili took sixth in race one but was beaten to the same finish in the second by the four·cylin· der Suzuki of Gregorio Lavilla . an impressive performance from the Spanish rider, who is otherwise on a season-long hiding to nothing. Chris Walker was almost as creditworthy in race one, taking his factory Kawasaki to seventh after winning a fight with his countryman James Toseland, Hodgson's HM Plant teammate. Toseland nearly crashed in his efforts to fend off the troublesome and ever-probing Walker, who went on to take eighth in race two, and had to settle for merely regaining his sad· die and then the blacktop to finish eighth. Toseland retired from the second race after being black-flagged for a jump·start. Best of the conventional privateers proved to be Lucio Pedercini, running ninth times two, with Lavilla adrift of him in race one and Pedercini Ducati's Marco Borciani in 10th in the second. Lower·order points scorers in race one were Borciani, Mauro Sanchini, Steve Martin, Serafino Foti and none other than factory Benelli runner Peter Goddard - in 15th. The likeable Aussie did well to fin- The Superblke pack roars through one of Misano's few right-hand comers. ish this far up the standings in a sea· son when the competitiveness of the privateer machines went stratospher· ic. His luck was not to last because his bike failed in race two, the cam· chain being the guilty component. A sweet· and-sour first anniversary of the Benelli's birth as a racebike. Goddard did, however, score one more point than double crasher Xaus. The luckless, and some would say reckless, Spaniard went from a double podium at Lausitz to a double gravel bath here, underlining that, as talented as he is, rider power is nothing without control. Were he on any other bike than the one that Bayliss is winning with at will, then reasons could be found - but Xaus' hard front· end style seems to elicit too high a price. Race two's lower-order men, filling 11 th to 15th places, were Sanchini, Martin, Michele Malatesta, Broc . Parkes and even the lapped Bertrand Stey. Ten riders never saw the checkered flag in race two, with only 17 competitors going to the bitter, boiling end. The significance of a weekend most exhausted riders will be glad to see the back of was made plain by the championship table, post·Misano. Bayliss moved further ahead of his nearest rival Edwards, 360·311. Almost 50 points . almost two full race wins. So, even if Bayliss fails to score at Laguna, and Edwards wins both races, the points differential will be only one, in favor of Edwards. As neither rider has performed to the point of winning at Laguna before, World Superbike life should hold at least some variety for the spectators. Third overall, Hodgson sits on 194, with Haga 182 and Bostrom, back into fifth at the expense of Xaus, on a total of 165. CN