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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ROAD RACE FIM WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 9 / JULY 10, 2016 MAZDA RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA / MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA P72 had four top-four places this year, two at the most recent rounds. Hayden was a fighting fifth in race two, but the best result for BMW at Laguna was a sixth place for Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team), who looked like he was having to wrestle his way around for most of the weekend. After the adventures into unchart- ed territory of a non-finish for Jona- than Rea, he can console himself in his summer break by the knowledge that he only has a reduced points lead of 46, but that is still nearly two whole races worth, with only eight individual races to go. But not for a while yet, as round 10 does not start until September 16. Currently, Rea has 368 points, Sykes 322, Davies 260, Giugliano and van der Mark 185 apiece. Hayden, the home boy, made podium good, has 173 points in sixth place overall, and probably still has cramps from signing so many auto- graphs, and sore eardrums from the cheers that welcomed him home, in his new WorldSBK outfit. CN RACE ONE 1. Jonathan Rea (Kaw) 2. Tom Sykes (Kaw) 3. Nicky Hayden (Hon) 4. Michael van der Mark (Hon) 5. Alex Lowes (Yam) RACE TWO 1. Davide Giugliano (Duc) 2. Tom Sykes (Kaw) 3. Jonathan Rea (Kaw) 4. Chaz Davies (Duc) 5. Nicky Hayden (Hon) Nicky Haden had a special paintjob on his motorcycle at Laguna Seca, black and white up front, a touch of camo, with a green logo on the back read- ing, the "The Creature is back to Laguna." It was a play on words of the old 1950s clas- sic horror movie The Crea- ture from the Black Lagoon. Hayden was the number-one box office draw at his home round and could hardly get past his legions of fans every time he left his pitbox, changing area or media center. Hayden's Honda WorldSBK Team will now return to its head- quarters in The Netherlands, while Hayden and Michael van der Mark will fly to Japan in or- der to start their preparations for the Suzuka 8 Hours, which takes place on July 29-31. The Dutch-based squad and the riders will then reunite halfway through August for a two-day test at the Lausitzring in Ger- many, the same circuit hosting the 10th round of the season on September 16-18. Honda's Technical Manager Pieter Breddel, summarized the team's weekend: "We tried some changes to the front of both bikes, with an eye to the track temperature, because the front-tire choice was the key for the race here in Laguna. In the end, with Michael we decided to go back to yesterday's set- tings and made just a few clicks to the rear suspension. With Nicky we used a harder front spring, which he liked so we kept it for the race. Michael had a good start to the second race after the crash he had before the red flag, made up several places and was seventh at the end. Nicky was in attack-mode and got up to third, but then he had to give away a couple of places and for some reason— which we are currently inves- tigating on—he couldn't be as quick as he was before the race was stopped. He immediately said that the front wasn't feel- ing the same and that was basi- cally holding him back. Still, it wasn't a bad round: Nicky was only behind Sykes in terms of points scored this weekend, while Michael was able to limit the damage very well today, considering his grid position at the restart. We have a long break ahead now, but we will be testing in five weeks at the Lausitzring, the same track that will host the next round. We haven't been racing there for a long time, so it'll be very useful for us. Stefano Cecconi, the team principal for the Aruba.it Racing - Ducati Team, said afterwards: "We needed a good result to make justice to our potential. Davide and Chaz had a won- derful race, with a hard but fair duel that kept us on our toes but hopefully entertained all our fans. The next round will be in September, but we won't take long holidays because we al- ready defined a testing program to keep growing as a team." Briefly...