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Chili and eventual crasher Laconi.
"What can I say?" Laco ni said. "The big
problem is that if I am not in fro nt of
Noriyuki, he was slow, and I tried to go
faste r than him, and I felt I was over the
limit. That's why I crashed. I tried to go
away, but I entered too wide. pushing
hard, and lost the front . I am not happy
because I am unable to get away from
him. I tried my best with the team and
the engineers to get the be st out of this
bike, an d w e did , so if I crashed. it
means t hat I was at t he limit. I really
wa nt to wi n t his ch ampionsh ip, an d I
hope that we w ill have someth ing new
for the last three rounds."
Well, it was o nly fair, I suppose, to
share the spoil and the despoils.
DFX Ducati's Steve Martin scored
third place in race one, and Ten Kate
Honda's Chris Vermeulen was third in
race two - a pair of Aussies at either end
of the experience spectrum. but both
with big points to prove.
Race o ne was our first doozy - an outstandingly close fight for sup re macy that
was only deci de d o n the last half of the
last lap, after an eight-rider battle for the
win characterized the first sector of the
25-lap race. Eventual race winner Haga
held off Laconi over the line, with the
closely following Martin, winner of
Superpole. taking third . Chili lost out on
his chance at the win after crashing from
the lead in the uphill Surtees corner. leaving Haga and Laconi to duke it out, w ith
Mart in slightly ahead of fourth-place finisher Vermeulen. The Petronas FP-I
three-cylinder of Troy Corser was eight
seconds back in fifth, but the ride of the
race came fro m British Championship pr ivateer Je ntin Yamaha's James Ellison, running SBK spec Pirellis to sixth, holding off
the previous championship leader, Ducat;
Fila's James Tose land, in the process.
Race two. which was decided on
aggregate after a crash halted proceedings
after only three laps, was a contact sport
with two halves. Chili , who had his
repaired bike take its last grace of the
spanner seconds before the start, went
out of pit lane and turned bac k up the
track to join the grid , a move which elicited great protest and discussion, and eventually earned Ch ili a verbal warning fro m
the powers that be.
De Matteis was t he unlucky rider to
have broken his collarbone in his fall
at the bottom of Paddock Hill. cutting short a somewhat steady intro duction to the PSG-I 999 . the bike
Chili rejected in favor of his 99B
chassis with a 999 engine fitted .
Once more, we saw Haga the winner
in any case. even if Chili crossed the line
first in the rerun . On corrected time,
Haga still had the upper hand . The action
was once more close, sometimes to the
point of co ntact, as Haga and Laconi
fought fo r supremacy until his fall on lap
15 of the restart. Laconi was not too
pleased with the rough handling he's been
getting from some riders recently, includ-
I
i Briefly...
I
ing his own teammate at Laguna Seca.
In third place, Vermeulen capitalized
on a crash from new championship leader
Laconl, w ho was leading the race at the
time. In the title chase, the fo rceful four
top riders have clumped to gethe r at the
head of the ta ble, making a comfortable
base camp for t he mselve s as t hey each
strap on oxyge n and adrenaline for the
final assaults o n t he no rth face of the
SBK pinnacle .
''After all the problems we had in practice and qual ifying this weekend, we've
come away very well with a fourth and
the third," Vermeulen said. "I know now
that the championship is pretty open. We
came here with a new bike we were to
develop for a year. and I planned to be
World Champion in 2005 . But if it comes
along th is year. then I'll take it. "
What does this close competition
mean? It means that the one-make-tire
ru le pro motes incredibly close competition. Laconi leads on 21 B, ahead of
Vermeulen on 216 . Haga o n 212 and
Toseland on 210. Now that's the way the
publ ic likes it. even if the factory Ducati
team is tearing out their corporate hair.
Or are they?
Winners of the 13th manufacturer's
championship in Superbike, thanks to
Haga's second race win, they were
nonetheless excused the acute embarrassment o f seeing their num ber-one
t horn in the corporate side, Chili, taking
t he win in race two, even if he did cross
the line ahead of all others in the second
half of the race.
The blushes were spared because it
simply would not have done to see the
hybrid bike. which has undermined the
otherwise comprehensive prowess of the
new 999 , be the one that earned the
po ints to take the t itle .
RACE ON E
A magnificent start to the first race saw
all away cleanly fo r the first dive down
Brand 's equivalent to riding through an
open mine sha ft, Paddock Hill. First down
t he hill was Haga, followed by pole man
Steve Martin .
Afte r five laps, an outstanding ly close
co nte st was headed by Chili, with Laconi
and Haga slightly adrift, and then a war-
ring fact ion of Vermeulen, Martin and
Corser having their own litt le Aussie disagreements. Toseland. having started on
row three. was through to seventh but
three seconds dow n on t he leaders, with
the ever-impressive Ellison in e ighth, 3.6
sec o nds from t he lead .
Both Laconi and Haga passed C hili on
the e ntrance to Padd ock Hill and Druids
Corners, respe ctive ly, Haga's pass a lunge
that seemed ha rd to some and slowed
them all enough to let Vermeulen get
right back into the three-rider slipstream .
Vermeulen took Chili one lap later, w ith
Martin uncomfortably close beh ind.
Jiri Mrkyvka crashed out on his old
Ducati, while Mauro Sanchini saw his
number-six Kawasak i expire from under
him.
Haga and Laconi were having a real
dust-up at the front , keeping the chasing
pack in one unitary procession, the fro nt
four breaking the air, w ith Martin and
Corser running right behind.
By lap 10. Laconi had made a small gap ,
upping a .OOB-second advantage to a fulsome .9 1Bon lap I I. Garry McCoy ran off
track at Druids. tip ping off as he
approached the safety barriers, just as
Chili's new teammate Giancarlo De
Matteis had crashed his 999RS.
As Haga's challenge began to fade at
half-distance, the wily fox Chili decided to
stay on Laco ni's tail, especially if he had
any desires on w inning. Haga, having
dropped back for a breather. upped his
pace by half a second to reclaim a podi um
chance. with Vermeulen 1.7 seconds from
the lead, Martin 1.9 seconds back . and
Corser, a watching 2.6 seconds behind
World Championship leader Tose land,
who was having a tough race against loc al
wild card Ellison, the Pirelli control tire
having the desired effect - the fight
proved especially hard when Ellison
passed him on lap 17.
"I've got a st iff neck from the crash in
race two, I've dropped from first to
fourth in the champion sh ip, I've disappo inted mysel f and my home crowd - is
t he re anything e lse?" To seland said.
"T he re's sti ll o nly e ight points in it,
though - unlucky fo r Regis, but I've had
bad luck as well, with Corser taking me
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The 2005 Calendar, still a dream away due
to the need to sort out the FormulaOne and
MotoGP c:aIen