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Corser goes home as Haga heals |
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Posted by Staff
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Tuesday, 26 February 2008 |
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Only a week after the 2008 World Superbike season kicked off at Losail with
a podium for Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italy WSB Team) the second round
approaches at Corser's home circuit, Phillip Island (PI), this coming weekend.
After the Saturday race in the Middle East, normal Sunday service will be
resumed from this weekend, with raceday at PI coming on March 2.
Both
Corser and his team-mate Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italy WSB Team) have taken
part in a successful pre-season test at the 4.445km circuit, setting faster lap
times on their YZF-R1s than they had ever done before in Australia. Corser is
not only a double World Champion and the most experienced rider ever in World
Superbike, he is something of a virtuoso performer at Phillip Island, having won
six races in front of his adoring home fans; the most recent was in race one,
2006. Based in Europe for most of the racing season, Corser relishes putting on
a show in his native country and will be all out to add to his Qatar podium -
ideally with his first WSB race win in Yamaha colours.
Haga is nursing a
battered and bruised body in the run up to the Australian round, after one heavy
fall in qualifying at Losail and another in race one, but he is determined to
ride at his normal level this weekend to get his championship challenge back on
track. He has won with Yamaha at the Phillip Island circuit before, way back in
1998 on a YZF750SP; one of his 26 total career wins so far.
Expectations
for the team are high after a solid winter test at Phillip Island, during which
many aspects of the YZF-R1's roadbike technologies - like the YCC-I (Yamaha Chip
Controlled Intake) and the more track oriented overall chassis design - were
extensively evaluated by the riders.
Shinichi Nakatomi (Team YZF Yamaha)
hopes for better fortune in round two than he experienced at Qatar, with one
finish in 21st and a DNF poor reward for all his efforts in the one-rider team.
He is now in his third competitive year with the same squad and now knows the
Phillip Island circuit well.
The Yamaha GMT 94 World Superbike team,
featuring David Checa and Sebastien Gimbert, learned a lot in Qatar in what was
their first competitive meeting since jumping up from World Supersport to World
Superbike. Not able to use their full WSB engine specification yet (as there are
still some Endurance racing parts inside) the team now feel they know a better
way forward in terms of machine set-up over full race distance.
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Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)
Starting the season
with a podium at Qatar was good and I've already put the race two result from
last weekend behind me. We will just be taking things one race and one round at
a time from now on. It's good to be going to my home circuit, it's one of the
best tracks in the world and I always look forward to riding there."
Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team)
After two big
crashes at Qatar I am quite sore but I'm pretty confident I will be OK for
Phillip Island. We have to work well to get a good race set-up but as we have
tested there recently we should start from a good position. I need to get my
mind focused for this race, but first I just need a small rest to let my injured
right wrist heal a little bit."
Massimo Meregalli (Team Coordinator,
Yamaha Motor Italy WSB Team)
"It is time for us to be in front again so
we are happy to move on to Phillip Island this weekend as the last test results
were very promising. We tried many new things there, so we should start
qualifying from a good point. We really want to be in a position to allow Troy
and Noriyuki to be competitive on raceday as well as qualifying this weekend. I
think we will only see how Noriyuki's injured wrist is when he gets on the bike
again." Shinichi Nakatomi (Team YZF Yamaha)
We proved in parts of race
two at Qatar that with the right settings we can run at the same pace we
qualified with, so we will have to concentrate hard on race suspension and tyre
choices at PI."
Parkes heads home in championship
lead
Broc Parkes and Fabien Foret (both Yamaha World Supersport Team)
could not have had greater contrasts in their results at the season opener last
weekend in Qatar, with Parkes scoring the first World Supersport win for the
all-new Yamaha YZF-R6 at the very first attempt and Foret losing out on an
almost certain victory when his tank ran dry with half a lap to go.
Parkes now has the drive of not only extending championship lead but
also his local crowd's support for Sunday's race pushing him on as he goes for
his first WSS win at the classic 4.445km circuit in the State of Victoria.
Foret, who won the WSS race in Australia last year after cutting through
the field in cavalier style, displayed nothing less than front-running dominance
in qualifying and most of the race at Losail. Coming so close to glory himself,
last week and then seeing his team-mate Parkes take the final race victory,
Foret now knows that his 2008 YZF-R6 is capable of wins already.
Massimo
Roccoli (Yamaha Team Italia Lorenzini by Leoni) and his squad will be working on
solving the issue that kept him off the list of finishers in Qatar to make sure
it will not return in Australia while the quietly impressive David Salom (Yamaha
Spain World Supersport Team) heads off to Phillip Island looking for another top
ten to go with his eighth from Losail.
Broc Parkes (Yamaha World
Supersport Team)
"I'm looking forward to racing at my home circuit and
it's great to go there with a win at Qatar under my belt. Sometimes you have to
have a bit of luck in racing especially in a class where there are so many good
riders out there who look like they can win in 2008. Our bike has been fast
right out of the box, testing was really great and even after a difficult first
day for me in Qatar, I was fortunate enough to win the race after some good
battles for first position. Fabien was a bit quicker than me in the race until
he stopped, so maybe he'll get one back soon. It's shaping up to be a great
season in WSS racing and I'm looking forward to all of it."
Fabien
Foret (Yamaha World Supersport Team)
"I'm just going to forget last
weekend and get on with it in Australia. I am very disappointed about what
happened, but I am not blaming anyone. I have to keep in my mind that I was
fastest in qualifying and the race until I ran out of gas, and of course it
doesn't hurt my confidence that I won the race at Phillip Island last year. I
have to be positive and now work hard with the team to make sure we have a good
set-up and tyre choice. Our new bike is very, very good already and obviously
has a lot of potential."
Wilco Zeelenberg (Team Manager, Yamaha World
Supersport Team)
"It was good for the team to take a win and we have to
remember that even though Fabien wasn't able to finish the Qatar race, his
overall performance until the very last lap was very strong. He deserved so much
more because he did a lot of tough work and didn't get the 25 points. We will
find a solution to what happened with the fuel consumption, and try to keep the
performance up at the same time. We all felt for Fabien last weekend, but with
an all-new bike, it's not bad at all to start with a win from Broc. That is what
we have to take forward to Phillip Island, where the aim is to have both riders
on the podium this time."
from Yamaha Press
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