LEON HASLAM, ALSTARE SUZUKI
Race 1: Fourth Race 2: Second Championship Position: First
“IT WAS A VERY CLOSE THING!”
After a fourth place in the first race, Leon Haslam fought tooth-and-nail to take a podium in the second race to keep his series lead intact; Haslam was charging after Cal Crutchlow in second place, but then inherited runner-up spot when Crutchlow slid off at the first chicane. Troy Corser (BMW) was in Haslam’s wheel tracks for the last few laps, but the GSX-R1000-mounted Briton held him off to take his seventh podium of the season. Max Biaggi and his Aprilia won both races; the Italian is now just three points behind Haslam.
“Today was a hard day and I’m happy to leave Monza still leading the title race. Max was strong here and I knew it was going to be a tough pair of races. The podium in race two was very hard work, but I didn’t want to miss out and kept battling away. I had a really big ‘moment’ and was way out of the saddle twice in the space of a fraction of a second. Somehow I stayed on the bike, but it was a very close thing! After Cal crashed, Troy kept me on my toes, but Max was too far in front for me to catch so I just made sure of runner-up spot. I did something to my wrist when I nearly crashed and it felt pretty sore, but I managed to carry one to the end. In race one, I lost contact with the leaders and then had a bit of a grip problem for the last four or five laps and couldn’t get out of the corners as fast as I wanted. We made some little suspension changes – just a few clicks here and there – for race two and the bike was definitely better to ride.”
JONATHAN REA, TEN KATE HONDA
Race 1: DNF Race 2: DNF Championship Position: Third
“I’M NOT DOWN IN THE DUMPS”
Jonathan Rea crashed out of both races at Monza, ending the weekend without a single point but still retaining third place in the championship standings. Starting from the front row of the grid, Rea got away slowly in the first race, ending lap one in 11th place. The 23-year-old calmly fought his way up to fourth before falling unhurt at the fast entry to the Parabolica turn on lap eight. In race two, the Northern Irishman was caught in a first-corner melée after getting clipped by another rider. Rea was transferred back to the medical centre but nothing more than a sore left ankle was diagnosed.
“Well it’s been a bad weekend for our assault on the championship. I made a small mistake at the end of the back straight in the first race when I was trying to avoid Haslam and Crutchlow. Then race two ended before it had begun when I got skittled off going in the first corner. But I’m not down in the dumps about it. It’s times like these that you can really tell the strength of a team and I know that this team is really very strong. They gave me a good bike this weekend but we couldn’t really make the most of it. I’m actually really excited at the challenge ahead, because we were able to make up quite a lot of points in the middle and end of last season. We’ll all pull together now and I fully intend to get back to winning ways at Kyalami next weekend.”
CAL CRUTCHLOW, STERILGARDA YAMAHA
Race 1: Third Race 2: DNF Championship Position: Tenth
“ALL CREDIT TO YAMAHA”
Cal Crutchlow had a great first race, mainly with his team-mate James Toseland, battling and slipstreaming all the way to the line – in the end there was just four hundredths of a second between them, with Toseland ahead by a short nose. Crutchlow made a good start for race two and was chasing Biaggi in second place just 0.1s behind the leader. On lap 11 stones from Biaggi’s rear wheel flicked up, peppering Crutchlow’s helmet, with one piercing his oil cooler. This caused him to low side going into the first chicane on lap 12; He was uninjured in the fall but unable to continue.
“I felt like I put together a really solid first race, we didn’t get the best of starts but made up for it and got stuck in. All credit to Yamaha, they’ve done a good job to give James and I a competitive package so it was great for us both to deliver them the podiums here for their home round. It was a strong result and we rode well so I was looking forward to the second race. I started really well and didn’t take long to get tucked in behind Max, I knew exactly what I was doing and had my strategy sorted to pass him on the last lap. Incredibly some stones flew up off his back wheel, I was so close behind I felt some hit my helmet and unfortunately a big one made a hole in my oil cooler. I made it through another lap, but coming into the first chicane it must have reached my back tyre and I went straight down.”
NORIYUKI HAGA, XEROX DUCATI
Race 1: Eleventh Race 2: Sixth Championship Position: Sixth
“I COULDN’T KEEP PACE WITH THOSE AHEAD”
Noriyuki Haga spent the best part of race one battling with privateer Luca Scassa and then, in the second half of the race, with Sylvain Guintoli. From sixteenth on the grid, he immediately made up three positions before moving up to eleventh place. Noriyuki held eleventh position for the remainder of the race; although managing to pass Guintoli on two occasions, the Frenchman quickly regained the advantage. In race two Haga quickly moved from sixteenth to seventh position. He then battled for sixth position against Tom Sykes on the Kawasaki for the remainder of the race, losing out only in the final stages. Crutchlow’s crash up ahead of them meant that Haga eventually concluded the race in sixth.
“In both races I was having a lot of difficulty turning the bike and didn’t have enough grip at the rear. In race one I had to put it right down on its side to get it to turn as I wanted and this of course meant that I couldn’t keep pace with those ahead of me. We changed a few things before race two and improved the situation a little. Grip was good in the first five laps or so but from mid-race it was really hard, as the bike was drifting wide and was hard to control. In the end I’m quite satisfied with sixth position, as it was tough here this weekend.”
Jakub Smrz bought his PATA Ducati home in fifteenth place in race one and eighth in race two. He remains 13th in the championship overall. Daisaku Sakai – making his European debut for both himself and the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 – high sided out of the first race, and didn’t start the second.
The WSB paddock now packs up and flies to Kyalami, South Africa, with racing on May 16th.
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