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Haga fastest Yamaha rider at Monza

Posted by Staff
Friday, 09 May 2008
From YRC Press Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) was the fastest Yamaha rider on show on the first day at Monza, posting a time of 1'47.074 to go 12th fastest overall. He was just over one second from provisional pole, at this long 5.793km circuit. Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) was only three places behind Haga on day one, looking for greater top speed and general set-up to get back into contention at the fastest track on the WSB calendar. Qualifying was conducted in warm and sunny conditions, a great contrast with the deluge of rain that cursed the team's attempt to test at their home circuit of Monza last month. Team YZF Yamaha rider Shinichi Nakatomi went 19th in qualifying, with Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha GMT94) one place and 0.461 seconds behind him. David Checa (Yamaha GMT94) was unable to ride at Monza because of his recently dislocated hip his place was taken by American rider Michael Beck. He took 29th place on the provisional grid in his first ever ride outside the USA. Final qualifying and then Superpole for the top 16 riders takes place on Saturday, with two SBK races taking place on Sunday 11th. Noriyuki Haga (12th - 1'47.074 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) "OK I guess, but we have had some issues with the rear traction but that, I think, is coming from the tyre. We have three different tyres and we have to make suspension settings for them all. I tried a few things this morning and this afternoon but we haven't found a good feeling yet. Tonight we change and we see what happens tomorrow. The front tyre choice has been made. Some of the other bikes seem very fast here." Troy Corser (15th - 1'47.232 - Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) "The bike is not fast enough at the top end of the scale. The chassis we are finding some improvements with, we're not a long way away with it but we are still losing maybe half a second in straightline speed. Having it rain during our test here last month was not so good but we are just not accelerating onto the straights the way we want to so far." Massimo Meregalli (Team Manager, Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) "Both riders are looking for more grip exiting the corners to let them hit full speed at the end of the straight and we are working for an overall better bike set-up. We lost some testing time last month but there was nothing we could do about that. Tomorrow we will make some improvements and we will try our best as always." Michael Beck (29th - 1'51.869 - Yamaha GMT94) "This is the first time I have been out of the USA and this has been a great experience already. I always wondered what it was like racing over here in Europe and I finally got to experience it here. There are one or two tracks like this in America, but this place has a lot of straightaways and fast corners, and the Parabolica corner is pretty amazing."

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