WSBK ROUND 5, MILLER, MONDAY MAY 30

A tough weekend’s work for Arai riders in Salt Lake City…

LEON HASLAM, BMW MOTORRAD MOTORSPORT
Race One: 8th                                  Race Two: 13th              Championship Position: 5th

“THIS WAS A RACE WEEKEND TO FORGET”
Starting from 12th on the grid for race one at the 4.907km Miller circuit, near Salt Lake City, Leon Haslam had work to do and duly fought his way up to sixth place by the closing stages. But with just three laps remaining he lost track position to Ayrton Badovini and Tom Sykes he eventually finishing in eighth place. Race two was one to forget for Leon, as his difficult weekend continued and although he battled hard was just unable to get his bike working consistently around the circuit, eventually finishing in 13th place. There was no such drama at the front for Carlos Checa, who took his second victory of the day and increased his championship lead to 61 points.

“This was a race weekend to forget. We have identified some issues, and we have to solve these. I am confident that the entire team will work hard to bring us further up the ranks soon. We need to go away from here and regroup if we want to be strong for the next races, and we must now look to move the bike forward.”

JONATHAN REA, CASTROL HONDA
Race One: DNF                               Race Two: 11th              Championship Position: 6th

“AT LEAST I’M NOT GOING HOME WRAPPED UP LIKE A MUMMY!”
Difficult qualifying sessions left Castrol Honda rider Jonathan Rea starting the two 21-lap races at Miller from the fourth row of the grid; despite a promising start to the first outing Rea was not able to finish the first lap, while in race two another good start saw Rea battling for a top six placing before he dropped back down the field, visibly suffering from corner entry problems.

“We just haven’t had a package that we could compete with this weekend and it was all I could do to finish where I did in race two. Obviously, the day wasn’t helped by not coming home with 21 laps of data from race one; on the first lap of that one, I was the victim of a very intimidating attempt at a pass that went wrong and we both fell down. As much as I’m disappointed with the way things have gone this weekend, I really feel for the guys in the team who have worked so hard to get things working. We just haven’t been able to find the sweet spot for the bike at this track and scoring four points from the weekend is just not good enough. We can’t walk away from here with our heads held high and the only consolation is that at least I’m not going home wrapped up like a mummy like I did last year...”

Noriyuki Haga and his PATA Aprilia finished race one in 9th but scored a DNF in race two, and therefore slips back to 11th in the championship.

Jakub Smrz (Effenbert Liberty Racing Ducati) so nearly landed the number one spot in superpole just behind Carlos Checa, and followed that great result up with a brilliant 2nd place in first race, just 2.7s back from Checa. Smrz couldn’t repeat in race two, but finished 8th, and remains 9th in the championship. He was understandably elated after so nearly bagging the victory; “I’m so happy for the entire team, as they did a great job. Even after the warm-up we did not know whether the settings were correct, so I was at the beginning of the race a little unsure. But at the very end I felt really great on the bike!”

Australian Josh Waters, leading the second WSBK outing for Team Yoshimura Suzuki wound up 12th in race one, and 15th in race two.

The next Word Superbike championship round is at Misano, with racing taking place on June 12.



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