2006 World Superbike - Assen
Text and Photos Courtesy MotoGP, Kawasaki, Yamaha
Racing, Team Suzuki and World Superbike.
Edited by webBikeWorld.
Race Results
Reigning World Champion Troy Corser and
team mate Yukio Kagayama both fell
victims to the weather conditions at
today’s World Superbike Championship
round at Assen in Holland, crashing out
of the opening race. And Corser
left the event point-less after being
taken out on the first corner of race
two.
After two days of dry conditions, the
circuit was soaking wet by the time the
first race got under away today.
A lot of oil had also been spilled in
the morning warm-up and the cleaning
trucks had gone out twice before the
riders felt confident enough to venture
out in the rainy conditions.
In race one, Team Alstare Suzuki
Corona Extra’s Corser and Kagayama both
fell foul of the slippery surface and
were out of contention by eight laps.
Corser crashed because his visor fogged
up and he couldn't see where he was
going and Kagayama crashed when he hit a
large puddle of standing water.
The race was one of attrition and in the
end only 15 riders out of 28 finished.
Amongst the casualties were three of the
top four in the title chase.
Chris Walker (Kawasaki) started from
last place but stormed through the
field, mastering the difficult
conditions to take his maiden World
Superbike win. Second was Andrew
Pitt (Kawasaki) with Michel Fabrizio
third.
By the time the second race started,
the track was virtually dry, though
there were still a few damp patches
waiting to catch the riders out.
Corser’s race lasted only to the
first turn. His front wheel was hit by
Haga’s bike, destroying the rim and
damaging the disc in the process and
when he tried to hit the brakes nothing
happened and he crashed.
Kagayama led for a substantial part
of the race until his tyres went off.
After that, all he could do was keep
going and try and bring his GSX-R1000
Suzuki safely home. In the end, he
took a hard-fought-for fourth behind
Troy Bayliss (Ducati), Andrew Pitt and
Fonsi Nieto (Kawasaki).
There was good news for Alstare
Engineering Corona Extra: Max
Neukirchner started in almost last
position in the first race but rode
steadily throughout the 22-lapper to
take sixth place and 10 championship
points. Despite the terrible
conditions and several lurid slides, the
young German somehow kept the bike
upright and ignored all the mayhem
around him.
At the end he was less than
half-a-second off fourth place. In race
two, he was one of the riders caught out
by a damp patch. He lost control and
fell, fortunately without injury.
Troy Corser - Race 1: DNF,
Race 2: DNF: “I guess you could
say that today was one to forget and the
only good news is that I never hurt
myself in the two crashes. The
first race started well enough and I
managed to lead Bayliss in the wet for a
couple of laps. But soon my visor
started fogging up and I was having to
try and look out of the side of it just
to see where I was going! At the
kind of speed we were going, that isn’t
good enough and when I looked up one
time, I was off line and heading into a
large patch of water. Next thing I
knew I was down and my race was over.
“In race two, there was an even
bigger disaster: Haga was next to me off
the line and heading toward turn one I
think he missed a gear and then hit me.
At first I didn’t know what happened and
I tried to brake for the turn, but
nothing happened. I went down and
it was only when I looked at the front
of my bike that I realized that the
impact had broken my front wheel rim and
damaged one of the brake discs.
What a frustrating and disappointing day
it has been - especially after taking
Superpole yesterday. If today had
been dry, I feel I would’ve taken two
podiums for sure, but that’s racing.”
World Superbike Results
Race 1: 1 Walker (GB-Kawasaki), 2
Pitt (Aus-Yamaha), 3 Fabrizio (I-Honda),
4 Nieto (E-Kawasaki), 5 Abe (J-Yamaha),
6 Max Neukirchner (D-Alstare Engineering
Corona Extra), 7 Lanzi (I-Ducati), 8
Rolfo (I-Ducati), 9 Muggeridge
(Aus-Honda), 10 Toseland (GB-Honda).
Yukio Kagayama (J-Alstare Suzuki Corona
Extra) DNF. Troy Corser (Aus-Alstare
Suzuki Corona Extra) DNF.
Race 2: 1 Bayliss, 2 Pitt, 3
Nieto, 4 Yukio Kagayama (J-Alstare
Suzuki Corona Extra), 5 Xaus (E-Ducati),
6 Lanzi, 7 Barros (Bra-Honda), 8 Laconi
(F-Kawasaki), 9 Toseland, 10 Fabrizio.
Troy Corser (Aus-Alstare Suzuki Corona
Extra) DNF. Max Neukirchner (D-Alstare
Engineering Corona Extra) DNF.
Championship Points
1 Bayliss 332, 2 Toseland 232, 3
Haga 230, 4 Pitt 197, 5 Troy Corser
(Aus-Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra)193, 6
Barros 175, 7 Yukio Kagayama (J-Alstare
Suzuki Corona Extra) 139, 8 Walker 123,
9 Lanzi 115, 10 Nieto 112, 18 Max
Neukirchner (D-Alstare Engineering
Corona Extra) 19.
Preview
Yamaha Setup Report - After a break of almost a month the
Superbike World Championship enters its
hectic final leg with round nine of the
series at Assen in the Netherlands this
weekend.
With four rounds over the next six
weekends it promises to be a busy time
for the teams and riders in what has
been a thrilling championship so far.
One man who can surely be expected to be
in the thick of the action is Yamaha
Motor Italia's Noriyuki Haga, who is the
closest rival to series leader Troy
Bayliss (Ducati). The Japanese star gave
his best form of the season last time
out in Brands Hatch, winning the day's
second race, and consolidating his
second place in the championship.
Haga rates Assen as one of his
favorite circuits although, like his
rivals, he has yet to experience the
shortened circuit that awaits him this
season. Previously boasting the longest
lap time on the Superbike calendar, the
entire northern loop section has been
removed to make way for a new car park
and improved spectator facilities.
The
circuit now measures 4.55km, compared to
6km of the previous incarnation. Many
riders have expressed their
disappointment at the emancipated layout
but the real winners will be the
trackside spectators, who will
experience 22 laps of Superbike action,
rather than the 16 laps of previous
years.
"Assen has always been one of my
favorite circuits and I have had some
good results there before," explains
Haga. "I know that they have changed the
track quite a bit but it does not bother
me at all - the track is the same for
all the riders and we must just go out
and ride it. At Brands Hatch everything
was good. Only a small problem with the
bike stopped me from pushing as hard as
I would have liked in the last laps of
the first race, but otherwise the bike
was perfect.
"I'm not thinking about the
championship and I just want to go out
and win as many races as possible. It
was a great feeling to win again in
Brands Hatch and since then I have had a
holiday back home in Japan. It was good
to relax and spend some time with my
family and I'm feeling in good shape for
the last part of the season."
Haga's team-mate Andrew Pitt was the
rider of the day at Brands Hatch for
many people. The Australian recovered
from two bad starts to charge through
the field and finish fourth and third in
the races.
If the former Supersport
world champion can get off the line
better in Assen then there is little
doubt he will be in contention at the
Dutch round.
Pitt currently lies sixth
in the championship but, with former
MotoGP winner Alex Barros (Honda) just
nine points ahead of him in fifth place,
his target for Assen is to add to his
three podium finishes this year and move
up the leaderboard.
While Haga faces an uphill struggle
to claw back the early-season advantage
of Bayliss, the 2006 Supersport World
Championship looks like going right down
to the wire.
Kevin Curtain heads to the
Netherlands on equal points to defending
world champion Sebastien Charpentier
(Honda) with his Yamaha Motor Germany
team-mate Broc Parkes also well in
contention for the championship.
Yamaha's third-generation YZF-R6 has
flourished over the second part of the
season, taking pole position and the win
at each of the last three races, in the
hands of Curtain, Parkes and Yamaha Team
Italia's Massimo Roccoli, the winner in
Misano.
"It's back in our own hands
now," says Curtain. "We were working on
developing the bike at the beginning of
the season and then had a few races
where we ran into a bit of bad luck. We're working together much better as a
team and our understanding the bike
improves at every race. I've always
maintained that the championship
wouldn't be decided over the first half
of the season and here we are going into
the last four races with everything to
play for."
Circuit Name: Assen
Circuit Length: 4555 m
Opened 1955
Lap Record: 2' 4.685 (Chris Vermeulen,
2005)
Fastest Lap Ever: 2' 4.179 (Chris
Vermeulen, 2005)
