Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

World Superbike Championship Round 5: Oschersleben. Germany Petronas team saw Troy Corser 12th and 14th; his teammate James Haydon crashed hard in race one, missing the second as a precaution. Haydon's first crash was horrible to behold, as he did two complete back flips, landing on his shoulders, neck and head each time, in some twisted interpretation of a gymnastic floor exercise. Lucky to escape serious injury, Haydon withdrew from race two and hopes to shine at home in Silverstone. Corser was just invisible this weekend as his team struggles to come to terms with the three cylinders' woes, and they were the team worst affected by the high temperatures. "We've still got a lot of work to do with the bike," Corser said. "We tried something different in the race like we have been every session, so it's not easy. We just need to go and do some more testing; that's all." So, despite losing a race for the first time, Hodgson and the Ducati 999 extended their championship lead, sitting on 245 points already. Be warned, however, the 999 is proving to be a front-tire sensitive BRIEFLY•• • The perennial problem of buming tail pieces on the FP1 Superbike has yet to be resolved, with the bikes exhibiting ovemeating tail sections in qualifying during Friday's 3O"C ambient temperatures. Haydon's machine actually caught fire undemeath him in the aftemoon session on Saturday. and he had to hop off it early. The problems of excessively hot exhausts have caused the carbon cans to burn through. precipitating the manufacture of elaborate titanium replacements. due to amve for the Silverstone round. if all goes to plan. They do not reduce the heat problem. but they stand up to the high temperatures better than the carbon cans. It is not known whether the problems with heat are uncombusted mixture buming in the exhaust and silencer. or simply exhaust gases that are exiting the chamber much hotter than normal. The one thing that is for sure is that so far the Petronas has had the same problems from day one. hence the flames out of the tail of the machine and the problems experienced at Monza and Oschersleben with the tail units going on fire. Haydon even had to get off his Petronas pretty quickly ,n practice. as his machine was merrily ablaze. and he had to jump off to prevent injury. -The fire was really scary. - said Haydon from the safety of Pit Lane. -I started to feel the heat. and when I looked back. there flames were licking round my helmet and thick smoke everywhere so I had to crash it into the grass. It was a shame because I think I could have got down into the low 30s in that session: Head of Ducati Corse in Superbike Paolo Ciabatti confirmed that there will be an official WSS 749 effort in 2004 taking on the might of the Japanese factories. Weight of the twin is an acknowledged problem. but Ducati feels that the engine has enough potential to overcome it. Rumors of an official AMA squad in 2004 were quashed however. Another Ducati story· a rumor not discussed with Ciabatti however - is that Regis Laconi will be a good replacement for Hodgson. should he head off to MotoGP. Pierfrancesco Chili's poor fortune continued from practice. when his PSG·' Ducati failed right at the start of the 20-minute race warm up on Sunday moming. He set only six laps. compared to the dozen or more set by others, but was still second fastest, 02 seconds behind Hodgson. a.' Gregorio Lavilla became the latest solo rider to sample the delights of the sidecar rider's bizarre and individualistic three wheeled, two personnel world. The Spanish Suzuki star was taken for a few laps around Oschersleben in Jock Skene's GSX-Rloo0 powered sidecar outfit during the Superside World Champi. onship's by now customary "taxi- ndes. Lavilla was understandably effusive about his latest slice of adrenaline. "It was impressive how much grip they have on the brakes. and it felt fast because it was so low." Jurgen van den Goorbergh had an outing on Martlen van Gils' machine. Rumours of Francis Satta's participation in this precarious pastime were proven to be false. Petronas Racing sponsorship and marketing coordinator Fiona Cole had two goes on Bill Philp's three-wheeler. wearing Troy Corser's leathers and crash helmet. Corser joked with Cole that should she fall out of the sidecar. she was to remember to lift her head clear off the ground - as she was wearing Corser's very latest crash helmet... The Superstock class' limit of three sets of Pirelli tires per weekend meant that .James Ellison and Enrique Rocamora experienced the ignominy of being disqualified from the first qualifying session on Friday. They had brought old tires. issued to them at Monza. to do their initial shakedown runs. Each tire. however. is bar·coded for checks to be done at the entrance to Pit Lane. and thus they were told they had broken the rules and were banned from the first day. "I saw the bloke looking at the tire and having a discussion with the other marshals. but he didn't try to stop me or mention anything to me," said Ellison. "They just let me out and then disqualified me." Ellison puts his use of a knackered old tire from Monza as a mistake and nothing more. "When there is only yourself and one mechanic. it is easy to make a mis· take." said Ellison, After initially being disqualified from the meeting altogether, his punishment was eventually reduced to being disqualified from Friday qualifying and a rear tire taken away. giving him just one rear tire for the final qualifying session. Had Ellison been disqualified. it would have meant that there was no 22 .JUNE 11. 2003' cue • e n e beast (ask race one crasher Xaus), and Hodgson is having to summon up lots of concentration and years of top-level experience to set his still astonishing early season pace. Only five points and one Superpole loss short of perfection, Hodgson could care less for the detailed arithmetic, as he is now a gigantic 113 points clear of the rest. Toseland has picked up the carbon fiber reinforced gauntlet after Xaus' low score and Lavilla's no score, sitting on 132. Xaus has slipped and fallen to British interest in the Superstock class. as John Laverty has been ruled out of the meeting due to injury and David Gatenby failed to qualify within the permitted time. A far cry from the glory days when the first three Champions proved to be Brits - Karl Harris and James Ellison twice. Astonishingly heavy and violent thunderstorms affected the start of Saturday's qualifying, the Superstock class being washed out first of all. Such was the ferocity of the rains. and the hail that came halfway through it. that there was no Supersport outing until 39 minutes after the session was originally scheduled. and the entire day went off behind the usual running order· not a new experience this year. The Superstock class had to be content with completing their last ten minutes of qualifying after the Sidecars at lunchtime on Saturday. The Supersport class was particularly cursed by weather at Oschersleben. the second session being run in conditions that were not quite ideal for all the riders to set their fastest laps on Saturday afternoon. Chris Vermeulen hopped up to second, and lain Macpherson eamed himself a start from the second row. but otherwise most riders were condemned by their performances In the first qualifying session on Friday. The extremes of weather. with 86-degree air and 118·degree track temperatures on Friday. followed by hailstorms and outrageous rain on Saturday morning. made final qualifying something of a lottery for all classes and a particular challenge for the tire companies. An all-Dunlop front row after Friday hinted at the prowess of Dunlop recently. and only Hodgson broke the Dunlop hemogeny - him and Steve Martin's fieetingly competitive Pirellishod DFX Duke. Neil Hodgson's comments regarding his 999's lack of stability and relative nervousness in some situations prompted the Fila Ducati team to try out some different settings on their latest machine. with Hodgson finding himself out of contention on day one. A return to more conservative. more familiar settings launched him to Supenpole, On a full wet circuit Neil Hodgson fell from his Fila Ducati on Saturday morning, requiring three stitches for a wound on his right - i.e.: throttle - elbow. Losing the front on the entry to a very wet first chicane. Hodgson was back out fighting fit for Super. pole, albeit finally getting hiS score of season crashes off to a slid· ing start. Eight wins. four Superpole wins and one crash. After .James Toseland crashed has HM Plant Ducati on Saturday moming. help was on hand to retum him to the pits. One Davide Tardozzi. boss of the Fila Ducatl squad. had the pleasure of fenying young Toseland back Into the arms of his HM plant team. a sporting gesture. even for one of Ducati Corse's own satellite riders. With Oschersleben being the only German Superbike race of the year. after the unpopular Lausitzring was removed from the calendar. a good crowd was expected on raceday. The somewhat unexpected Saturday weather may put a literal damper on this idea. but In theory the close proximity of Oschers to Berlin. and the whole Sachsen area. should lead to a big crowd - in June rather than September this year for a change. Chris Walker explained his good form in wet conditions with a throwaway line, "It's because I've got two good feet now. rather than two injured ones." He did hurt himself a little after falling on Saturday aftemoon. during Supenpole. even if he did finish up on the front row after all. Limping heavily on Saturday night. Walker's injury-cursed season continues, seemingly without end. .Juan Borja's Oschersleben was filled with pain. thanks to a broken coccyx. and he opted to miss periods of practice to rest his injury. Qualifying tenth in Supenpole. Bo~a was not looking forward to racing on Sunday, In an effort to improve .Jorg Teuchert's performance on the Yamaha Deutschland R6. the team have had the latest generation of White Power front forks at Oschersleben, In addition the team have been working on foot peg position in order to make him more comfortable on the bike. The main problems. according to some sources. is their working relationship with Dunlop. A recent Oscher- _ s third on 126; Laconi maintains his fourth on 122, while Walker is still a sub ton on points, just like Frankie, who surely deserves more than seventh place after four podium finishes. That's what four no scores and an 11 th do for a guy, I guess. As a new man joins the club of SBK race winners, Toseland now fmds himself in a four-way barroom brawl for second in the series, with only 21 points separating him from LaviJIa. And as was shown today, with Dunlop on the up, Hodgson far from comfortable on the crest of his win- sieben test for the team allowed them to choose appropriate race tires, yet Dunlop tumed up with different tires - newer and theoretically better - than the ones the team had declared fine after the test. .James Toseland, the HM Plant Ducati World Superbike star. was called into action at Oschersleben to model the new range of SBK clothing including shirts. sweatshirts. paddock jackets and coats. After the first day of qualifying the ultracompetitive Supersport grid was taken to a new level with the top-20 qualifiers all within one second from pole position. The nature of data collation in SBK. with no equivalent of the MotoGP "Marlboro Book" and no input from MotoGP statistics guru Dr. Martin Raines. makes any further analysis of exactly how this stacks up to previous years difficult if not impossible. The latest fashion of see-through oversuits. to allow sponsors logos to be seen while riders can remain at least partially dry. were out in force at Oschersleben. and many riders were seen to lap the track and pick themselves up from the ground in a prophy· lactically protected fashion. IS a strong possibility that World Supersport challenger Katsuaki Fujiwara will be on an official bike for the Suzuka 8-Hour There race this year. despite being the most credible threat to Chris Vermeulen's excellence in the 600cc class. Vermeulen skipped his supposed ride in the Assen World Endurance race to be fit for Oschersleben. not wanting to make his thumb injury worse. David Garcia. teammate to Regis Laconi In the NCR Ducati team. was missing from action at Oschersleben. The wrist and hand injuries (fractured right scaphoid and left metacanpel) he suffered at Sugo have seen his forearm muscles rapidly wasting away. and his planned retum to the saddle at Oschersleben was called off, He hopes to be fit for Silverstone. on June 15. although at present even picking up light objects is proving somewhat difficult. A good showing in the Assen World Endurance race for the Ten Kate Honda team. conducted one week before Oschersleben. saw Karl Muggeridge and Barry Veneman lead the race before losing time in the pits and finishing fourth - against full·on GSXR,OOO Suzukis and the like. Pierfrancesco Chili was one of the many riders to test at Mis· ano after the Monza SBK race. and he was trying out a couple of things. First was a new breed of Dunlop front tire. which he did not like so much. "It gives me less feel from the front. but for another rider I think it will be fine." said Frankie. and the second was a new magnesium swingarm, which was stiffer but maybe delivered too much stiffness versus sensitivity. The Superstock race once again promises to be an exciting spectacle with Ducati. Suzuki and Yamaha all battling for top honors in this highly relevant stock series. Nebel will no doubt be aiming to make a break at the front to win in front of his home crowd. but it is highly unlikely that the regular championship contenders will allow that to happen. Rox Racing Team Ducati's Lorenzo Lanzi made it two wins out of three attempts for the all-new Ducati 999 with an impressive race victory at round three of the European Superstock Championship at Oschersleben. Wild Card rider Stefan Nebel made a poor start from pole. dropping to third position behind the Union Bike GI Motorsport Yamaha R1 of Gianluca Vizziello and Lanzi. Vizziello looked impressive leading for the opening two laps before being overhauled by both Lanzi and Nebel in a single corner on lap three. With clear track in front of him. Lanzi was able to attack. immediately setting the fastest lap of the race to set a new lap record. Nebel. the 2002 German Superstock Champion stayed well in contention, matching the Ducati rider but unable to mount a serious challenge for the race win. Vizziello began to suffer from his Monza injuries and dropped back from the leading duo but was able to claim his first podium of the year ahead of fellow Italian Lorenzo Alfonsi. Castrol Racing Suzuki's Steve Webster and Paul Woodhead took control of the Oschersleben Superside race to take the win and set the fastest lap to move within striking distance of the top of the championship standings.

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