Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 29 JULY 23, 2013 result of an FIM disciplinary hearing still to decide on whether or not Tom Sykes keeps the one place advantage and the extra points he got for finishing ahead of Guintoli in a controversial Monza race, Guintoli retook the lead Sykes snatched from him at Imola - by just four points, 239- 235. As Guintoli said, this was a tough race to come to, a tough race to compete in injured, but one he needed to race at. "After last Sunday night or Monday, going from thinking I was going to have to miss two races, to be leading the championship again, is just weird. If you have the chance to be racing then so many things can happen. Even in the dry I think I would have had a decent result today. Sometimes with injuries you can try and overcome them. It is not nice, but it was worth the effort." Melandri may have had only one race to make up ground with today but he did so effectively, and overtook Laverty for third overall. Davies is fifth, Baz sixth and Rea seventh. There are 101 points spread across the top seven. CN Race One 1. Marco Melandri (BMW) 2. Chaz Davies (BMW) 3. Ayrton Badovini (Ducati) 4. Jonathan Rea (Honda) 5. Michel Fabrizio (Aprilia) 6. Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia) 7. Max Neukirchner (Ducati) 8. Loris Baz (Kawasaki) 9. Leon Camier (Suzuki) 10. Jules Cluzel (Suzuki) P101 Briefly... Indian round, stranded as it is in November, well after the rest of the season has been completed, is still the subject of much paddock discussion, about whether or not it is a viable option from an administration and budget point of view. Chaz Davies suddenly jumped back to the front row after making three steps in the development of his machine at the Moscow weekend. He had tested at Imola with the rest after the race, but put his improvements down to what he did at Moscow. "They were all chassis changes and all were to help the bike turn to the middle of the corner. We have had a kind of base for us for a while and then we have made more steps and they were all front end. It was shortening the bike, one considerable change. The bike is more or less doing what I want it to do." Eugene Laverty felt his Aprilia team had finally sorted a rear-end traction and stability issue that has plagued him all year, thanks to the one-day test at Imola right after the previous round. "You have to attack this track to set a lap time and the bike is working pretty well. The changes we made to the bike in the Monday test at Imola were a big step, and it was a matter of understanding that change, because it was something that we did only near the end of the test. So we did not really understand how it would affect the bike. It has really changed the character of the bike, even for engine braking and everything. Here it was a case of me learning to understand the change and trust it." The 'Evo' rules were apparently approved if not published at Moscow, but the final full World Superbike class rules for 2014 are still subject to the longest game of three-handed regulatory tennis between the MSMA, Dorna and the FIM anyone can remember. The Superbike class rules are not expected to change much in 2014, other than a price cap coming in for whole bikes from manufacturers, and component part price ceilings. Kenny Noyes, from the USA and Luke Mossey from the UK, joined the PTR Honda World Supersport hordes at Moscow, as replacements for the injured Sheridan Morais and Luca Marconi, respectively. They both toiled in the dry then damp qualifying sessions, finishing 23rd and 25th, at a track neither of them had seen before. Alexey Ivanov replaced the injured Kawasaki DMC-Lorenzini rider Vladimir Ivanov at the Moscow round. Ivanov suffered serious leg and pelvic fractures at the Imola round. Alexey Ivanov is the team's Superstock 600 rider, and took part in his very first WSS event at Moscow. Sam Lowes lost his chance of a pole position in World Supersport when his engine developed a fault on the final corners at the end of the second qualifying session. This meant his team had to break out his fifth sealed engine, from their allocation of eight this year. Kenan Sofuoglu took pole, thanks to his Friday time.

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