After a 3 week break the World Superbike Paddock is heading for San Marino, where Max Biaggi will be hoping to repeat on his success at Miller Motorsport Park and his 3rd double win of the season to extend his 15 point lead on Leon Haslam.
Leon has not raced at Misano on the Suzuki Alstare, but as the track is fast and free flowing I’m willing to bet he will be more than keen to make up his loss of points due to his DNF during Race 2 at Miller Motorsport Park. All that coupled with a successful recent test where Leon tried out new Ohlins front forks and after posting quicker laps times, he will now go ahead use them for the race.
The other teams testing recently at Misano were Yamaha, Aprilia and BMW. Day 2 of the test saw Yamaha’s Carl Crutchlow (1:36.2) and James Toseland (1:36.3) top the timing sheets. Very closely followed by BMW’s Troy Corser and Suzuki’s Leon Haslam who both posted the same time of 1:36.4
Both Xerox Ducati and Althea Ducati also held their 2 day test at Misano during World Ducati Week which saw Troy Bayliss prove he hasn’t lost his passion for the sport by posting a blistering time of 1:35.6. Troy managed to post these times with a new prototype race tyre, and even using a qualifying tyre couldn’t help either Noriyuki Haga or Michel Fabrizio to bridge the gap. Surely this can’t be doing much for the mood or the mojo inside the Xerox garage, especially since Misano and Ducati have always equalled good results.
Carlos Checa was very happy to put the frustrations behind him after having to retire from both races at Miller Motor Sport whilst leading with a technical error thought to be related to the fly-by-wire throttle. He completed a successful test posting a time of 1:36.3. Hot on his heals was his team mate Shane "Shakey" Byrne and last year’s Race 1 2nd place man with a time of 1:36.6.
Let us not forget about the man who is currently 3rd in the Championship standings and last year’s Race 2 winner, Honda’s Jonathan Rea who is still recovering from his qualifying crash at Miller Motorsports Park where he sustained tyre burn injuries to his neck and shoulder. Although Honda did not participate in the testing Misano the team practised at their home track in Assen. Both riders were happy to report they had been working successfully to eliminate the chatter problems both have been recently suffering.
With only 24 championship points separating 3rd place man Jonathan Rea (151) and 7th placed man Troy Corser (127) the table is tight. Throw into the mix that 11 riders in the current paddock that have all had podiums at Misano in the last five years, can only mean one thing...yes ...it is going to be a great weekends racing!
Jen
