Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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Round 4 WORLD SUPERBIKE because the left side was becoming very difficult and the tire was sliding around. But I am very happy because I made a good race result and we pushed very hard to be there today. I really wanted to win today, but Chris passed me on the last lap. He was just a little bit faster than me for the last few laps, but we will see next time' I gave my best, and I am happy when I get a result like that". Toseland headed up Pin, with Walker only a second or so off that pairing. Chili was still a solitary eighth, Haga a similar ninth, the man who started from pitlane, Nannelli, running tenth. With no laps left except the one he was on, Vermeulen squirted past Laconi at Della Roggia, taking the win by 0.582 seconds, as Laconi spun it up trying to get back into the lead. The top six - Vermeulen, Laconi, Corer, Muggeridge, Toseland and Pin remained, but Chili passed Walker at the end, and thus Walker was eighth. Haga was a disgruntled ninth, Nannelli a supercharged 10th, just happy to have started after his mechanical worries on the warmup lap. For Muggerldge - having just missed the podium in race two - his terrible luck in previous races was ended, as both of his Monza race-day rides were personal highlights in his four-round Superbike career. For Toseland, Monza was vindication of his true talents, and despite finishing behind his teammate in race two, he left Monza with points and pride from both his race performances. ''I'm slightly disappointed that the second race wasn't as good as the first, but we had a bit of a spin problem, and I wasn't able to slipstream the Kawasaki and the Yamaha, and when I did, after eight laps, the leaders had gone," Toseland said. "The podium in race one was the best bonus for me. It was a race In which I showed everyone, the team and myself that I am capable of repeating my performances of last season. The team has been well organized all weekend. We found a great setup at the start, and we were able to run two confident races. It's been a positive weekend all round because I was on the podium and I'm taking a trophy home to May 8. 2005 ~ FIM World Superblke Championship Series Silverstone for the British Round." Spare a thought for Andrew Pin, who won many plaudits for perseverance and hard riding on his Yamaha Motor Italia machine, finishing fifth and sixth, but he was just unable to stay with the leading groups in either race. "We are chipping away at it every weekend and improving every time out," Pitt said. "I just couldn't get right with Toseland in race two because I didn't have the drive out of the corner that he had. I could make it up in the entries, but he would get it back on the exits. The main thing is that we're gening the front tires to last now, and that has given me confidence in the front for the whole race." His teammate Haga had another tough weekend, I Ith and 9th, and was not at all happy about his machine setup. Chili finished his Monza weekend without adding to his win total of four at the classic Italian circuit, but he did take two seventh-place finishes. His teammate Max Neukirchner was ruled out of the weekend due to medical reasons, with Renegade Honda Koji rider Ben Bostrom finishing 18th on two occasions. Walker was once more the top Kawasaki rider, with two eighth places his reward for another good display of the speed and prowess of the ZX-IOR. Just behind him in each race was the SC Caracchi Ducati 999 of stand-in rider Nannelli, who was easily the top Ducati privateer on show. Steve Martin and Garry McCoy had another tough day of racing, with Martin falling from race one and McCoy pulling in. In race two, McCoy was lapped on his way to 21 st place, while Martin retired. Stories circulated of there being a total of 10 engine problems at Monza, with McCoy's spare bike in bits in the garage as race two got under way. There were 10 retirements or crashes in race two, far more than in race one, and after two hard races at the fastest track on the calendar, it was to be expected. The Yamaha Motor France squad had a tough weekend, eventually qualifying well with rookie Abe and second-time Monza visitor Sebastien Gimbert, with only Abe in the points - 10th in race one, ahead of 26 MAY 18, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS Haga, and 12th in race two. Giovanni Bussei was I Ith in race two, but if rumors are true, neither he nor teammate Ivan Clementi are happy with their team and both may plot a pre-Silverstone revolution. At the happier end of pit lane, Corser may have lost his near-perfect record of wins in the last few races, but with teammate Kagayama running wide and then failing to finish in race two, his championship lead enhanced; he's now 52 points ahead of second place. Third place is the property of Vermeulen, some 67 points behind Corser, but only 15 behind Kagayama. Laconi is fourth with 87 points, Pin a brave fifth on 60. Another rider with good reason to leave Monza smiling is Toseland in sixth, with everything starting to turn around like he said it would sooner or later. Finally, the Suzuki stranglehold was broken, and although the Alstare team is liked and respected by virtually all, many people had been wishing for something approaching a bit of a reversal, just to make things more interesting. Things at Monza were just plain fascinating, with incidents and accidents aplenty and not just one but at least two potential race winners showing up, plus eight or so real podium prospects. The tires behaved themselves to the point of posting race times faster than those in 2004, if still not quite up to the 2003 best performances in the days of tire competition. Silverstone, a track of Monza-like speed and uniquely slow chicanes, is the next port of call, at the end of the month. Ducati SC Caracchi's Nannelli had a magnificent ride to third, only dropping off the leading pace in the last two tours. Transported with delight, he took the cooldown lap helmetless, grinning all the way. Another local and a regular in the championship, Team Italia Megabike Honda's Michel Fabrizio finished fourth after a mistake with gear selection on the start line dropped him below 20th place away from the line. He could have won it, and he knew it. Kevin Curtain was fifth on his Yamaha Motor Germany machine, immediately behind Fabrizio. There were four different bikes in the top six places, thanks the early pace of Barry Veneman and his Suzuki. Nannelli scored big brownie points with the home crowd for banering through to second place on the entrance of turn one, passing Charpentier in the process. Curtain made up the early quartet of top riders, with Alessio Corradi a distant, lonely fifth. Going into Ascari, on lap five Charpentier took the lead. On the entrance to the Prima Variante, Nannelli retook the lead from Charpentier. It was often hair-raising stuff, and the crowd just loved the fact that one of their own was taking on the might of Honda and at least drawing, for the most part. Meanwhile, Fabrizio, making stunning progress, set another fastest lap on lap four and was closing in on the end of the Monza express of four leaders, some 2.6 seconds from the lead. Nannelli was forced to concede the lead (which he never held across the line at any stage) and second as well, after successive passes by Charpentier and Fujiwara on lap six, the same lap on which Christophe Cogan crashed out. Jamo Janssen also went out, as did another four riders, making it six in all. Or seven, when Corradi, haVing a fantastic ride - on the very bike Jurgen van den Goorbergh threw away for his MotoGP guest ride on Makoto Tamada's Minolta Honda - did not start after the end of the race. A constant three-rider battle for the win carried on up front. SUPERSPORT RACE It was another one-two for the Winston Ten Kate Honda duo, but like the Superbike races, they were of a very different color to the previous contests of 2005. The Supersport version of Monza became a three-rider race for most of the 16-lap Supersport event, but it was reduced to two riders in the final two laps, with Winston Ten Kate Honda rider Katsuaki Fujiwara holding 0(( teammate Sebastien Charpentier in an often-physical battle around this classic 3.59-mile Monza circuit. They bashed and clashed again, but it all came down to the paragon of the pursuit of racing perfection, the Parabolica. A mistake from Charpentier changing gears after a brave pass at the entrance to the last corner allowed FUjiwara to gain the final advantage. They Worfd Champion James almost touched Toseland (1) had his best weekend of the once more, but as year with a second Fujiwara himself place in roce one and said, that somea fifth in race two. times happens in Pitt (88) was the best of Supersport racing. the Yamaha's, with fifth- and sixth-place results.