Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

collapsed at the fringes of the parc ferme, saying, after a long pause, "I just lost the front." He also lost more of the I IO-point advantage he had before Assen eight days ago. He lost out 50 points in these four races to Vermeulen, who has taken three wins and a second out of four. Does anyone remember Colin Edwards in 20021 Maybe the impossible can happen, but it would even ace the Edwards vs. Troy Bayliss midseason reversal. For Vermeulen, race one delivered him his third race win in a row, after a long fight with Haga, albeit in a race that was foreshortened artificially due the advent of a few spots of rain. Called a result after 20 of the 24 laps, Vermeulen won by .269 seconds from Haga, with Corser third. Lanzi, who had run on at the very first corner after his pole position start, rejoined the race II th after a ride-through penalty, working his way up to eighth at the flag. A Superpole winner at the first attempt in factory colors, Lanzi became a race winner, too, holding on to a longterm lead despite intense pressure from behind from the first-placed Haga (who was third) and eventual second-placed man Vermeulen, who had to make his way through the pack from a slow start, down in eighth at one stage. Ducati Xerox's james Toseland was a solid fourth in race one, albeit seven seconds behind the winner, but in race two he had an off-track excursion shortly after becoming the fastest man on the circuit and finished I Ith, earning only five points. As his teammate Laconi was there in body (injured body of course) but not riding, Toseland nonetheless went from fifth overall to fourth in the championship at Laconi's expense, even after only scoring a fourth and I Itho An even better day was enjoyed by Qatar race winner Yukio Kagayama, who took fifth in race one and improved it to fourth in the second race, finding the form that had slipped down the back of the sofa cushions since the first few races of the year. Not everyone in SBK for the first time was enjoying Lausitz. Karl Muggeridge was a faller in race one and restarted only to retire in the pits. In race two, he slowly faded from a good start as grip decreased, his imperfect machine setup dropping him to fifth. A brace of sixth places, his pace affected by chatter, were the meager but useful rewards for Yamaha Motor Italia rider Andrew Pitt, who also had tire-choice issues to deal with, largely because the track temperature in race one was considerably cooler than in qualifying. He also had pneumatic drill-like levels of chatter, stopping him entering corners fast. Feeling the pressure from his homerace commitments, local SBK rookie K1affi Honda's Max Neukirchner took two seventh places, results he was not disappointed with. He won a personal battle with Norick Abe in race two and was three seconds clear of Lanzi's race-one charge. Renegade Honda KOjl's Ben Bostrom took a 10th place in race one, but a malfunctioning clutch in race two dropped him to 15th. He may have felt better, his internal injuries now largely healed, but with a sore back and fewer points from Lausitz than he planned on, he was not a happy guy. Pie r Francesco Chili had an engine failure in race one, recovering on his spare bike in the second race to take 10th, one place ahead of a recovering Toseland. Once more, the trend of Petronas riders having differing results in each race continued, as Steve Martin finished two laps down and 18th in race one but took an impressive ninth in race two. In the first race, Garry McCoy had been the leading Petronas runner, taking I Ith before he was forced to retire in the pits in race two. A delayed start, after Stefano Cruciani's PSG-I Kawasaki stalled on the line, brought chaos at an early stage, along with another warmup lap for everyone's troubles. RACE ONE At the start, a stunning ride from Lanzi - and a bad start from Toseland - saw Lanzi lead all the way off onto the banking, not the short track that the rest of the riders were using. It was comical for all but the blanched Ducati team, as all this prerace promise headed off on the wrong trajectory. He rejoined in third after the first section of track had been completed, but he did not go through the runoff slip road chicane (as instructed shortly before the race), and he thus was penalized by race direction. He was, however, to have the last - and well-deserved - laugh later. Corser was now in the lead, until Vermeulen sliced past him and Ralf Waldmann crashed. Haga went by Lanzi on lap two, temporarily. On the first corner of lap three, Corser made a mistake and went wide, and as Haga came up inside, the two nearly hit. Lanzi pushed Corser wide on the third lap, retaking third position, with Corser, Pitt and Toseland behind. Chili was the fastest man on the track by the third lap of the race, while a lap later on lap four, Muggeridge came in with no screen on his bike. However, Lanzi awaiting a penalty or not - speared a bigger fish, taking a I:40.076 shortly before passing Haga on lap five, and went into the lead for two laps, eight and nine. On lap eight, Vermeulen ran wide, allOWing Lanzi past while Haga set the fastest lap of the race, a I:39.828. Then Chili went out one circuit later with a mechanical problem. Toseland passed a slowing Pitt for fifth on lap nine, as Lanzi, Vermeulen and Haga didn't give an inch to one another. Corser was now a lonely fourth, two seconds down on Lanzi, who went into the pits on lap I I for his ride-though penalty. Haga was a very anxious-to-pass second, but he couldn't, and Corser was hanging back, I.46-seconds from the lead. Toseland was now fourth, 3.8 seconds down. Lanzi's ride-through dropped him to I Ith on the track, out just ahead of Bostrom, who was enjoying another good weekend of action despite his lingering injuries. By lap IS of 23, Vermeulen and Haga were still locking horns in the lead, with a 2.3-second gap back to Corser and 5.8 seconds to Toseland. Pitt's Yamaha was a comfortable four seconds up on Neukirchner and Kagayama, in sixth and seventh, respectively. Lanzi got up to eighth place on lap 16, but with another 5.9-second gap to make up on Neukirchner, and only five laps to do it in, it seemed a lost hope. Vermeulen started gesticulating to his pit crew on lap 20, the same time Kagayama passed Pitt. It was a light smattering of rain Vermeulen had been gesticulating about, and on lap 21 , the race was called, the results going back to lap 20. Rain stopped play, but there was so little of it, it was difficult to notice unless you were blasting though it at high speed on a racing motorcycle. The final order was Vermeulen, Haga, Corser, Toseland, Kagayama, Pitt, Neukirchner, Lanzi, Abe, Bostrom, McCoy, Giovanni Bussei, jose Luis Cardoso, Norino Brignola and the man who stopped it all before it got started, Cruciani. "We tested here in july, and that's maybe given us an advantage over the others," Vermeulen said of his race-one win. "That said, conditions in the last few laps of race one were pretty dicey, so it was a good thing that they stopped the race. We did all our practice here in 95 degrees track temperatures, and now it's at least I0 degrees cooler, so tire choice was always a bit of a concern. In race two, I got off okay, but then it bogged down a bit. I pulled the clutch back in, but then the bike's front end came up and I ended up about eighth. It was a big job passing everyone, especially at this track. By the time I had to chase Lanzi down, he had a big lead and my tires were pretty shot." CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 21,2005 27

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