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W o r ld Supe r b ik e C h a m p ion s hip
Round 1 1 : Assen , Holland
Edwards celebrates a long-overdue
vic t ory In race one, while Juan Borja
and Haga look on.
finall y go t b y on la p s ix , o nl y fo r
Ba yl is s to s impl y s tu ff h im o n t h e
ne xt left-h a nder.
Us ing all of t he tra c k a nd m o re ,
Bayliss was def en s ive to th e ma x, but
a lso to no ava il, afte r Haga ra mme d
pa st him on la p e ig ht . Chili who ha d
kept a watc hin g brie f on the battling
rider s right in fron t o f him , conserving
his tires in wh a t was a dramatic but
rela tivel y slow race , was s howing all
th e e xp erien c e of h is va s t raci n g
career.
His wisdom wa s c ut short on lap
10 , a s a ll three lea ding m en tw itc hed
on th e e nt ry to the fina l ch ic a ne, bu t
it wa s Ch ili who came off worst, s uf-
A short FIM announcement before the race at As sen finally gave
the date fo r Noriyuki H a g a 's las t a p peal session to the
C ourt of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). It is. inconveniently fo r
Haga, to be held in lausanne, Switzerland. on October 12 - one
day be fore first qualifying begins for the Brands Hatch W orld
Superbike race . A s his Yamaha team manager . Davide Brivio
explained, the timing is a little off . "There is no airport at lausanne and the nearest one is in Geneva, about 75 km away. The
last meeting of this nature finished at 8 p.m.. so if this one is the
same then we will not manage to get him on a flight on Thursday
night. It is not very easy but we will work something out. To me
the whole thin g is unnecessary . I hope he is cleared, but it is
enough that he loses his Kyalami points. We are doing well in the
championship even with out those points. W e are on the way. "
Opinion in the paddock is obvio usly mixed, but for some of his
key rival teams, there is almost one unified voice . "Fo lose his 45
Kyalaml points should be enough: said Davide Tardozzi of the
Infostrada Ducati team. " I do not unders tand why he has to be
made to go to tw o appeals which clash with races anyway. Their
timing is very bad.- Harald Eckl of the Fuchs Kawasaki squad was
of the same mind. and was even more critica l of the long. drawnout nature of the affair. - We should have the same discipline as
Fl . There is an immediate decision on anything like that. WIth one
appeal maybe, but with the whole result worked out before the
next race has even sta rte d . Then everything is cl ear. I don't
believe that the whole Haga issue clarifies the position the riders
are in. Every year the Clinica Mobile sends out a newsletter to all
the riders telling them what is and is not a banned substance. You
cannot clarify it more to the riders because the responsibility is
already on them." A different spin. with the same basic idea of
Haga having been punished enough already, came from Giuseppe
Bernicchia of the Apr ilia squad. " Haga has been a very strong
rider in the championship anyway this season. He should lose his
Kyalami poi nt s but one pro blem at th e mom ent is that everyo ne
else he rac es against is affected . Wh en a ride r lines up o n the
grid he can be look ing at Haga think ing . " Should I be racin g
against him or does it matter if I let him beat me?" It is bad for
Haga not knowing whether his points will count, or he will be racing hard at every race and then find he is banned from Brands
Hatch and loses his chance of the title anyway, But everyone is
affect ed by not knowing what will happen to him until three days
before the final race.The always-turbulent relationship betwe en the R&D Bieffe team
and their double 125cc GP W orid Championship rider Haruch i ·
ka Ao ki was finally canned at Assen when jo int team own er (and
original team rider) Donano Romboni replaced the Japanese rider
for the rest of the season. "W hen our computer engineer left the
team Haru said that he could not wo rk that way, so he couldn't
ride anymore. " said Romb oni. "H aru knew what our position was
before the start of the seaso n so for him to leave now is. in my
opinion, a little unprofe ssional. I think maybe he thought he would
come from GPs and find W orld Superbike quite easy - but after a
good start he has found out it is far from easy." Romboni, whose
sickening leg injury at Monza last year (whe n his right leg got
caught in the rear wheel of his Ducatil ruled him out of last year's
reckoning, declared himself fully fit , if not quite as sharp as he
wou ld like. " It fee ls good to ride again, but it takes some time to
get used to the speed - espec ially my eyes! Everything happens
so fast on a Superbike that your vision has to get used to it. W e
hope to be racing again next year, but we have to get a bigger
budget than t his year. W e run only private Ducatis now. even
though we have a good relationship with the fact ory , but they are
very expe nsive to maintain at peak performance. You have to
change engines all the time - very expensive - but a Ducati is still
probably the most competitive privateer machine on the grid."
Romboni's ring-rustiness meant he failed to qualify for Superpole.
finishing timed qualifying in 18th.
The dramatic upturn in the fortunes of A p ri li a ' s Supe rbi k e
effort in 2000 has sparked off intere st from many privateer and
S EPTEM BER 13 , 2 000'
c
u
e
I II II
n
II
fer ing a h uge c rash wh ic h le ft hi m
winded a nd his bike in th e m iddl e of
the ci rc u it.
Th e oil flag came o ut, but Duc at i
team m ana ge r Tardozzi wa s apoca lyptically angry that the rac e wa s not
stopped on what app eared t o b e
spilled oil at two sepa ra te pa rts of the
ci rc uit.
Ba y lis s s eemed to be un affected
by t ha t a s he fe ll off a t la p 13 after
runn ing wide , sliding on what was a
sus pe c ted flu id lea k fro m h is ow n
m achin e t o m a ke wh a t could have
BRIEFLY• • •
30
CJ::I:I!1 ~
I
e
n
e
Nat ional Superb ik e teams , acc ording to RSV projec t leader
Giuseppe Bemicchia. "We have had many request s - from AMA.
from the UK, from Endurance - to use the RSV next year. It is very
good that people want to run our bike, but my personal opinion is
that it would be easy to dilute the effort we are putting into World
Superbike now. Maybe it wo uld be bett er for us to carry on as we
are for next year . because making more bikes and giving the other
teams the support they need will take time to put into place, It is
not a matter of w eek s. At the mo ment . Alessandro Ant o nello
knows that he is here to help Troy [Co rser] win races. We know
that Troy is a championship contender, so maybe it is not so good
to have two top riders in one team, fighti ng each other, taking
point s from each other. " Bemicchia's personal opinions wo uld suggest that a rumored move to get Ben Bo strom onto the second
black and orange machine for the 200 1 season is wishful thinking .
A leaked co py of the provisional 200 1 Worl d Supe rb ike
Champ ionship calendar did the rounds at 'Assen, with what is a
highly-pr ov isional list o f dat es mirroring th is seaso n' s quite
strongly. Wit h all dates subject to change, we can expect to see
seve ral alter ations before any official announ cement is made - so
don't book the travel arrangements quite yet. March 11 - Valencia: Ap ril 1 - Kyalami; April 22 - Phillip Island; April 29 - Sugo: May
13 - Donington Park : May 27 - Monza; Jun e 3 (maybe 10>- Hock enheim: J une 24 - M isano : J uly 8 - Laguna Sec a: August 5 Brands Hatch: September 30 - Imola. Anoth er tw o rounds. at Pau
in France and Oschersleben in Germany, are to be confirmed, but
with the mont h-long gap between Laguna and Brand s, either
could fit in there easily.
Juan Borja had a successful pract ice at A ssen. using his vast
GP experie nce of the circ uit to go sevent h on Friday and sixth
after the 'wet' Superpole. He also noted that there was one crucial differe nce betwe en a Superbike and a 500cc GP bike around
A ssert's uniqu e to pography. " On thi s track yo u can ope n the
thrott le a long way on a Superbik e before you can on the GP bike
I was used to, and yo ur lap pace changes as a result. But I'm still
trying to get used to a different way of riding .'
P et er Godda rd. a three-time stand-in for the Fuchs Kawasaki
squad this year. has been rewarded for his efforts (an d mo re
probably his great Suzuka 8 Hour race) by getting another Worl d
Superbik e ride at Oschersleben. The three-man Kawasaki team
will be a strong for ce at th e penult imate round , es pe cially on
home territory . The Kawasaki team. who tested at Oschersleben
before the Assen race. spent a great deal of their time sorting out
suspension for Gregorio lavilla. "We tried to get better settings,
with more travel in the suspension." Lavilla said . ..A ssen is very
hard because the corners are so banked that you use up a lot of
suspension travel just allow ing fo r that. W e have made thin gs a
lot bette r, and I feel happy for my chances in the last few races of
the season . I hope to have a job in this team next year , but nothing is sett led yet. •
April ia unveiled ye t another new sponso r at A ssen, in the shape
of the sec ond ci garette co mpany to jump on t he mid -season
World Superbike bandwagon so far. First we had Wes t cigarettes
leading the way with Yamaha and now w e have MS , the recen tly
privatized Italian c igarette manufactu rer and importer. MS
became Aprilia's second mid-season sponsor , aher k