Drouin Counter Lunch Sunday 26th September, 2004

Oz Racers around the World – July 2007

Moto GP – Laguna Seca

Nobody had managed to win a MotoGP event from the front of the grid since the 2006 Japanese GP last September, but Stoner blew that statistic out of the window as he simply rode away from the rest of the field in California to snare his sixth victory of the season. Having been the man to beat throughout free practice and qualifying, the Ducati rider lost out when the lights went green as Dani Pedrosa made the best start from second on the grid to jump into the lead, but it wasn't to last as the 21-year-old points leader quickly made a move on his Spanish rival to retake the lead for the rest of the race.

Indeed, while one Repsol Honda man made a good start, the second was in trouble as defending champion Nicky Hayden saw his title defense lurch from one disaster to another at turn two, when he ran wide alongside fellow American John Hopkins but then made contact with the Rizla Suzuki man as both attempted to get back on line. While Hopkins would come off worst and end up on the tarmac, it would be Hayden who would ultimately pay the higher price as the race progressed…

At the end of the opening lap, Stoner led from Pedrosa, while Chris Vermeulen on the second Suzuki had maintained his third place from Yamaha team-mates Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards in fourth and fifth. Behind them, Italian Marco Melandri had jumped up to sixth from tenth on the grid – despite being far from 100 per cent following his session stopping fall during qualifying.

Throughout the second lap, Pedrosa was quickly coming under pressure from Vermeulen behind. While Stoner started to pull away, Vermeulen took his chance on lap four to dive into second at the final corner, making it an Aussie 1-2 at the head of the field. Lap four would also see the first retirement of the race, with the second Ducati in the hands of Loris Capirossi returning to the pits to retire.

Outside the top six riders, and interesting battle was starting to develop in the mid-field, with Randy de Puniet, Makoda Tamada, Shinji Nakano, Carlos Checa, Roger Lee Hayden, Anthony West and Alex Barros running in close proximity, while further down the pack, debutants Chaz Davies and Miguel Duhamel found themselves fighting with Nicky Hayden as the Respol man struggled down in 16^th place on his damaged Honda following his lap one incident. Hopkins meanwhile had pitted at the end of lap one but had resumed racing on home soil but two laps down at the back of the field.

The man on a move was Melandri, who was making light of his injuries to fight Edwards for fifth. Despite the American doing all he could to keep the Gresini rider behind him. Melandri swept by on lap five and quickly set off in pursuit of fourth placed Rossi. Within three laps, Melandri had caught onto the tail of his countryman, and on lap eight took fourth – with an unlikely trip to the podium drawing ever closer.

Stoner continued to lead the race from Vermeulen while Pedrosa in third had started to slip back from the front two and was starting to come under pressure from Melandri. Rossi was fifth ahead of Edwards, with de Puniet, Tamada, Nakano and West rounding out the top ten.

While the gap between first and second continued to grow, so the gap between third and fourth dropped, and by lap 14, the Gresini Honda was less than half a second behind Pedrosa's factory machine. For the following two laps, Melandri inched closer to the Spaniard and, having made an unsuccessful attempt to take third at the Corkscrew, Melandri made his move stick into turn ten to go into a podium place.
From that point onwards, the top three would be safe in their positions as Stoner gradually pulled away from Vermeulen, who in turn had a comfortable advantage over Melandri – meaning the focus turned to the battles further down the field.

Perhaps key amongst those battles was the fight for fourth, with Rossi keen to get as high as possible to minimize his points loss to Stoner heading into near month-long break before the Czech GP at Brno. The battle for sixth was also hotting up nicely, with a train of riders having queued up behind Edwards who was starting to slip down the order.

On lap 24, the American lost sixth place to de Puniet and by the time the field came round again, the ‘Texas Tornado' liveried Honda had lost two more places, with Tamada and West having demoted the home rider to ninth place – West having earlier slipped past Nakano in the mid-field battle. Nakano had then lost further places, with Roger Lee Hayden and Alex Barros having got ahead of him in the train.

By this point, Kurtis Roberts, Duhamel and Hayden had all joined Capirossi in retirement while Davies had lost time in the pits with a broken sprocket and was now running with Hopkins, two laps behind the rest of the field.

Over the closing laps, the fight for sixth would continue to be the main focus of interest, in the end it was de Puniet with West taking seventh after getting ahead of Tamada on lap 29. However a top ten finish for the younger member of the Hayden clan was still a good way to celebrate his MotoGP bow. The notable absentee from the top ten was Edwards, who had continued his trip the wrong way down the order and could only take eleventh place – both Hayden and Barros having passed the ailing Honda three laps from home on a disappointing day for the home riders. Two laps further back, Hopkins took the final point in 15 while Davies secured a finish on his MotoGP debut – the young Briton setting some encouraging lap times late in the race comparable with riders with much more experience under their belts.

World Superbikes – Brno

Race one:

James Toseland on the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda fended off the attentions of Max Biaggi, Yukio Kagayama and Noriyuki Haga to take one of the toughest wins of the year so far at Brno in the Czech Republic. The four way battle lasted for the full race distance but Toseland kept his head despite dropping from an early lead back to fourth place during the arduous race. Biaggi, who fought hard from lights to flag on his Alstare Corona Extra Suzuki, had to settle for second place behind the British rider who has successfully extended his championship lead.

The top three riders usually attend a post race press conference, however, Biaggi opted to sit this out due to sustaining a cut to his hand during the race and went to the medical centre instead. The cut was caused by a stone thrown up from Toseland's bike which damaged his screen.

“I must apologize for Max not being here (at the press conference.) It's my fault, I didn't do it on purpose but I ran wide and my bike threw some stones up which hit Max,” explained Toseland, “I've not been on the podium for a couple of rounds now and that was starting to piss me off, so I did my best on the track and on the grass and here I am.” Toseland feels his longer runs during practice helped him to his race win, “I knew we needed 40 degrees on track for my tyres to work and it was just 40 degrees. Everyone was in the same situation with the tyres but I think my work effort paid off by doing the longer runs.”

Team-mate to Biaggi, Kagayama took a well earned third place pushing his friend Haga off the podium. Kagayama had a little coming together with Haga during the race, he said “After race two, Haga is my friend, right now – no! I make small mistake and we touch. It took Haga time to come back but I was gone.”

When the race began it was Biaggi who took the initial lead from Kagayama, but Toseland dispensed with both of them by the end of lap one, while Haga took third place from Kagayama and went after Biaggi's second place. Haga and Biaggi swapped places three times on lap two while Toseland took the lap record with a time of 2min 1.889secs. Biaggi started to close down on Toseland and on lap five he made his move taking the lead and bringing Haga with him pushing Toseland back to third place. By lap seven Toseland was back to fourth place behind Kagayama while Haga made a charge for the lead. That only lasted for a few corners as Biaggi took it back. At mid race distance Toseland began his fight back and forced his way through to second place. Meanwhile Biaggi ran wide and dropped two places. Haga and Toseland crossed the line side by side with Toseland out wide and on the grass. The dust and stones thrown up by Toseland's bike showered Biaggi and Kagayama.

Toseland regained the lead on lap ten and Biaggi moved back up to second place. Kagayama made a late charge and took both Haga and Biaggi in one go to secure second place. Biaggi wasn't going to be out done and fought back for his second place. Kagayama was relegated to fourth place again by Haga on lap fifteen. The leading four had now split slightly with Toseland and Biaggi gapping Haga and Kagayama. Kagayama waited until the penultimate lap to take back third place from his friend and held it to the line. Toseland put in a titanic effort to keep his first place from the menacing Biaggi who had closed the gap down to just 0.127secs.

Troy Bayliss predicted that he would struggle on his Xerox Ducati and he was right. He was running in tenth place when Karl Muggeridge crashed and his sliding bike hit Bayliss knocking him off. Roberto Rolfo put in a solid race finishing in fifth place and keeping Michel Fabrizio at bay all race. Troy Corser didn't have a good time on track slipping form his fifth place start to finish seventh. The Australian has been struggling with grip all weekend and it looked like he succumbed again to it during the race.

Race Two:

Max Biaggi got the good memories that he had hoped for from Brno by securing the second race win at Brno for round nine of the Corona Extra Superbike World Championship. He was joined on the podium by Britain James Toseland who had hoped to do the double but it unfortunately eluded him. The final step of the podium went to Michel Fabrizio on the DFX Treme Honda who this time round made perfectly clean passing moves to secure his well deserved podium. “It is a lovely feeling to be back at Brno, it feels like my home town. This place loves me and I love it,” gushed Biaggi, “I have to say thanks to Suzuki as they worked very hard and finally we are winning again. Even without a win I enjoy this Championship. Everyone is on equal tyres so it doesn't change performance I think it is a good rule. I like this championship and I hope to win again.”

Toseland admitted he gave the second race his all but didn't have and answer for Biaggi, “I gave it everything. It is tough when you are leading the Championship as you need to think about things more. I couldn't do anything about Max so a first and a second is ok but I really wanted a double. I pushed hard at the start to catch Haga so I had nothing left at the end. I'm happy with today. I was disappointed with Misano as we just didn't have the package. These two podiums are for the team as they developed the electronics for me and that is what a good team does.”

Just before the race was due to go the weather took a turn for the worse with the wind getting up and a light shower of rain falling. The organizers delayed the start and declared it a wet race. The change in conditions caught a few people out and the riders were tentative with their first lap while they established how wet the track was. The rain blew over and the race continued in dry conditions.

Riders Championship (after Round 9 of 13)

Position	Rider	Team	Points
1.	JAMES TOSELAND	HANNSPREE TEN KATE HONDA	305
2.	MAX BIAGGI	ALSTARE SUZUKI CORONA EXTRA	262
3.	NORIYUKI HAGA	YAMAHA MOTOR ITALIA	260
4.	TROY BAYLISS	DUCATI XEROX	249
5.	TROY CORSER	YAMAHA MOTOR ITALIA	191
15.	JOSH BROOKES	ALTO EVOLUTION HONDA	40
16.	SHINICHI NAKATOMI	TEAM YAMAHA	37
17.	KARL MUGGERIDGE	ALTO EVOLUTION HONDA	33
18.	STEVE MARTIN	D.F.X. CORSE HONDA	14