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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A Honda spokesman confirmed at Br:no that the budget for the 2007 championship had already been set by Horda Europe, and it was not treater than the 2006 \,ari- et),. Honda Europe thus hopes to keep five Sup€rbike riders in the bi8 class, and four riders in Superspon, on some form ol olli- cially supported program. Currently Ten Kate takes the lioh's rhare of the Honda Europe financial support, Klafli Honda less so, and DFX no linancial support as such, bu! a(cess to new parts, kit pans and pre- production models, before most others. The three-team/five-rider stratety is designed to cover Nonhern European interests (Netherlands, Ten Kate), middle Europe (Austria, Klaffi) and southern Europe (ltaly, DFX). With a limited budget. this +r€ads th€ funds pretq. thint ln Supersport, Ten K.te is again the favored team, with Megabike Honda taking some budget. The spokesman raid that the team lineup miglt not chanSe that signifi- cantly, bu! indicalions from Ten Kate point toward a probable retention oflames Tose- land, but a bol$ering ofthe team to include two proven winners on each side of the garage. The loser in this scenario looks like Karl Muggeridge, but with half a season Ieft to go, and no tuiraitee of the JTl/Winston sponsorship continuinS for a third year. Toseland's inability to qualify and test as well as he can rece (up until Hisano and Bmo at least) is one point against him, bu! the t€am has meshed well with Toseland. who has World Champlon's credentials to boot. lt is expected that Ten lGte will look for a paoven Superbike nder, mther than a look outside the paddock. Honda is keen to keep l'4ichel Fabrizio in the DFX team, and of course Alex Barros is hot property for anyone, especially Ten Kate. Pier-France5co Chili is expected to retire at the end of the season and move into a role in team mana8ement, H€ would preter to staft his own team, ard bfing l"lichel Fabrizio into it, but financial realitie-s may see the status quo in his links with DFX. lf Chili does get his own team, then expect DFX to look into the possibilities ro run in Supersport or Superstock. lf Chili does stay on, then the team would hope to lind another true top-leveltalent to run in the squad along3ide Fabrizio, lilv ASusta, a high-ranking force in the big Superstock class, may run Luc: Scassa in hrs EVR Ormeni tearn in the Al'4A Champi- onships in 2007, with th€ plan being to run in World Slperbike when the next design of MV is a reality - probably not before 2008, The current MV is too over-square to run in World Superbike without an FIM rev-lim- iter litted. but expanding into the AMA next year will bring some much sought after extra-European exposure, in a high-profile domestic series, before any Superbike it released, Fonsi Ni6to's first qualiryint session at Brno was interrupted when his enSine rat- tled to a halt trackside, makinS toP-end 6l T Briefly.., > l{r- i I I , because I had to pass many .iders before I could attack the leader - my friend Nori- chan [Haga]. ln the closinS sla8es of the mce he knew that I was faster then him and he very kindly waved me throuSh. Afrer thar I ,ust concentrated on keeping a good pace and not making an), mistakes. I have always thought of mpelf as a little crazy, but today I showed another side of Yukio. Maybe this will be my new style for the rest of the season!" Fabrizio, only flfth on the penultimate lap, took both Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra's Tioy Corser and Haga on the final lap, to score third, with Haga ending up founh and Corser fifth. His passes were hard, but nothing like what was about to come in race two. "Considering what position we were in on Friday and even Saturday morning, I guess that a fourth and a lifth is not too bad, br.lt I'm not at all happy," Corser said. "l had some grip problems in the first I f E 'tl #w (!efi) Yukio Kogoyomo whcelier hir wqy lo Yiclory in the Czech Republic. Kqgoyomo wo! p6rf..l ol the Erno Circuil, winning bolh rocer in impressive rtyle, (Eelow) Noriyuki Hogo (4I ) leods thc woy wilh Troy Corser (l ), Jomer Toselond (52), T.oy Boylirr (21)ond Andrew Pitt (88) giving chore in the retond of lwo rocei ol Brno. race, so we changed the balance and lront and rear ride height for race two. lt was a bit better but, because it was more or less Yukio's setup, it took me a while to get used to it and by that time the leaders were gone. I man4ged to reel them back in and I thought that I'd get at least a third or maybe a second- I got past Haga and into second, but then Fabrizio came along with a couple of desperate moves. Honestly, if I hadn't picked up my bike when he tried to make his move, I would've hit him and we'd both gone down, taking Nori [Haga] with us, as he was so close at the rime- There's racing and there's desperation. He's a young kid, but it could've ended verT badly. After I had crossed the line in race two, I was so frustrated that lwas sick - but luckily I opened my helmet flrst!" "Ibseland was lu€ky to make the start of the first race at all, after a collision with a backmarker in morning warmup trashed his number-one engine and chas- sis. The backmarker was cruising on the racing line, and Toseland's avoiding action, despite being committed to the corner, meant that they only hit a hard glancing blow. and not something even more seri- ous. Ah oil leak and subsequent crash from a privateer's machine in the morninS warm-up restart caused another halt to proceedings, postponing the start of the Superstock 1000 race to the last race of the day- With Kagayama linalf awal and clea( Fabrizio completed the most unlikely last- corner double pass imaginable, forcinS past Corser and then pushing Haga to the white stripe on the outside of the corner exit - turning his head ro look at Haga as he did so - tg score his second career podium in World Superbike, iust a few hours after his first- Only ,I 73 of a second I;t;";,Irl!E;lEllE, - ! a- tf 'il. {- aa **r I ! N ri\ v n t ,t i t I |, - - I - I T I I Michel Fobrizio (84! hod his besr weekend of World Supcrbikc .qcinE. pufiing his Hondo on the podium in both rqcer. |) -t ,, rF-r l*'l I \ I t I h "rl \t I -t/ a. 1 \ '- crclE NElr/s AUGUST 2,2006 59