Superbike World Championship: round seven, Brno

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."