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SETUP REPORT - 20/07/2006
Superbike World Championship: round seven, Brno
Superbike World Championship: round seven, Brno
Round seven: Brno
Race date: 23 July 2006
Circuit length: 5,403 metres
Superbike lap record: 2:03.747 - Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha)
Last year's winners: Troy Corser (Suzuki) and Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha)
Brno in the Czech Republic is the venue for this weekend's seventh
round of the Superbike World Championship, with the Yamaha Motor Italia
squad looking forward to the event for a variety of reasons.
The historic circuit was the venue of the team's first world superbike
race win last year, when Noriyuki Haga came through from 18th in
qualifying to win the second race by over three seconds. And with team-mate
Andrew Pitt going to Czech on the back of his first win in the class in
the last race at Misano, the team is understandably relishing the
second half of the 2006 championship.
At 5.4km, Brno is the longest circuit on the superbike calendar. It is
a wide and flowing circuit with grippy tarmac and many elevation
changes. It's a circuit that has been proven to suit the characteristics of
the YZF-R1 and with the Yamaha Motor Italia squad having tested there
alongside the other Pirelli development teams last month, Haga and Pitt
go to the venue with good base settings for their machines.
For Haga, Brno comes in the middle of a hectic schedule and kicks off a
grueling three weekend run of races. The Japanese star has spent most
of the time since Misano back in his homeland, testing the machine he
will ride in the Suzuka 8-hour endurance race with MotoGP rider Colin
Edwards. He returned to Europe last weekend, where he was the fastest
rider in the three-day official Pirelli tyre test at Eurospeedway Lausitz.
Haga topped the timesheets on qualifying tyres, his best of 1:37.6
equalled only by world champion Troy Corser (Suzuki). However the Yamaha
man demonstrated his superiority in race trim, with a 1:38.2 lap that saw
him joint top with series leader Troy Bayliss (Ducati). The Japanese
rider currently lies second in the championship and, although Australian
rider Bayliss has carved out a 94 point advantage in the standings,
Yamaha's Japanese star won't stop fighting for the title that has eluded
him in his career so far.
"Yes, I am very busy just now," said Haga. "The Suzuka bike has some
big differences from the one I ride in world superbikes, especially the
tyres, but it was no problem for me to switch back to my usual bike and
the Pirelli tyres for the test in Germany. Brno is where we won the
first race with the R1 last year and for sure the bike is much better now
than it was then, so I hope we can have a good weekend. After Brno we
go back to Suzuka for the race and then Brands Hatch is the week after.
I am just taking each race as it comes but hope to always be up there
and fighting for the win."
Pitt ended the Lausitz test just one-tenth of a second behind his
team-mate. The Australian currently lies sixth in the championship and just
32 points behind second-placed Haga. "Both riders had a good test in
Lausitz and are ready for the race in Brno," commented Yamaha Motor
Italia team coordinator Massimo Meregalli. "Pirelli brought along a lot of
tyres for us to test and we were also able to try some small upgrades to
the suspension set-up. Noriyuki managed a good race simulation at the
end and both he and Andrew were happy at the end. I don't like making
predictions for the races but we're all feeling positive for going to
Brno. The riders want to win so I hope that we can have a good weekend."
In the Supersport World Championship, Yamaha riders are showing
strongly with three of the top five riders mounted on the latest generation
YZF-R6: Yamaha Motor Germany's Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes in second
and third, and Yamaha Team Italia's Massimo Roccoli moving into fifth
following a win in Misano. The Yamaha Motor Germany duo will be looking
for a good performance at one of their team's local circuits this weekend
after both had disappointing time in Misano. Parkes finished third
after making an incorrect tyre choice and Curtain a lowly sixth after
failing to find a good machine set-up throughout the race weekend. Both are
looking to pull back the advantage of championship leader Sebastien
Charpentier (Honda) over the second half of the season. The Frenchman
currently has a 30 point lead over second-placed Curtain, but with the
latest YZF-R6 improving at every race the Australian knows that the destiny
of the title is still very much in the hands of him and his team
personnel.
"We learned a lot when we tested at Brno," explained Curtain. "We tried
a lot of stuff and by the end we maybe lost our way a bit, but we know
what works around there and hopefully that means we can go there and be
right on it from Friday morning. It's coming up to that important time
in the season now. Nothing is ever decided in the first half of the
season but now we are getting to that stage where we need to be taking
points back from Sebastien if we are to win the title."