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WSB : Haga grabs impressive sixths in Misano
Round: 6 - San Marino
Circuit: Misano
Date: 26 June 2005
Crowd: 52000
Temp: 45ºC
Weather: Sunny
Round six of the Superbike World Championship at Misano saw Yamaha Motor Italia rider Noriyuki Haga battle exceptionally hot track conditions to secure two sixth places under the burning Adriatic sunshine. With ambient temperatures into the mid-thirties, and track temperatures well over 50 degrees Celsius, rear grip and traction were at a premium for the YZF-R1 riders, who spent much of practice and qualifying trying to improve rear end grip.
Despite starting from a lowly 21st position on the grid, the hard-charging Japanese scythed through the field to gain 20 valuable points from the two races to move him up to sixth in the championship.
Race one was a two-parter, shortened by one lap to 24, after a crash brought out the red flags. For Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia) the flags came out marginally too late, as an earlier crash had put him out of contention for the re-start. In race two a slipping clutch ruled him out of the results in the last few laps, and he pulled in with four to go.
Yamaha Motor France's Norick Abe scored a single finish, earning a point in race two after a crash in race one. Team-mate Sebastien Gimbert was forced to miss the Misano weekend after suffering a chipped bone in his lower right leg at the previous Silverstone round.
The first race win was taken by Regis Laconi (Ducati), from Chris Vermeulen (Honda) and Troy Corser (Suzuki). Race two delivered an identical top three, and was run in equally hot temperatures. Corser still leads the title chase, on 254 points to Vermeulen's 181. Haga sits sixth on 88, Pitt ninth on 70 and Abe 11th with 63.
Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia) "I made real progress in the early laps but it was not easy coming up from 21st position in qualifying. Right at the end of race two I had passed Chili but I entered the first corner a little too hot maybe and he got past me again. The conditions made it very difficult today, very hard work and lots of sliding. But we made a good job with what we had."
Norick Abe (Yamaha Motor France) "Again this was my first time at a new track but all weekend we have not had good grip from the rear. We tried so many settings and different suspension packages but everything was the same - no good. I used a qualifying tyre in practice but even here it was spinning all the time. I used the 200 section tyre all weekend, and it should have had more grip, but it didn't make any difference."
Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia) "We spent a bit of time trying to choose a front tyre that would go the distance but I just had no grip, really strange. I was easing it into the entry of the last chicane, being careful, but it still went away. It's been hard all weekend, struggling to find settings that worked. We improved bit by bit but the conditions made it worse."
Massimo Meregalli (Team Coordinator - Yamaha Motor Italia) "I think Noriyuki did remarkably well in race conditions but I think this weekend shows the problems of our team being new to this championship. Misano is a difficult circuit and it is hard for to go there with no information from previous races. We had a tough time finding good settings in qualifying but the team tried to understand what Nori's feelings about the bike were and last night we made real progress. We even made some positive changes between warm up and the first lap so I am very happy for the way that the team has worked this weekend."
Race classification WSB
Round: 6 - San Marino
Circuit: Misano
Circuit Length: 4060
Lap Record: 1' 34.913 (Troy Bayliss, 2002)
Fastest Lap Ever: 1' 33.525 (Troy Bayliss, 2002)
