Oz Racers around the World – March 2009

MotoGP - Jerez

Valentino Rossi moved confidently to the top of the 2009 MotoGP World Championship by picking off all three of his title rivals in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. The Italian, second in both Qatar and Japan, began round three one point behind Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, after losing out to the 21-year-old one week earlier at Motegi.

But Lorenzo's resistance lasted just one lap on Sunday before Rossi overtook the pole sitter for third position and set his sights on 2007 world champion Casey Stoner.

Stoner, winner of more 800cc races than any other rider - provided arguably Rossi's toughest opposition, and was the only rider to re-pass the #46 during Sunday's race.

Nevertheless, the Italian's second move stuck and - while Stoner concentrated on securing a career best third at the Desmosedici's bogey circuit - Rossi was left facing a 1.3sec gap to race leader Dani Pedrosa.

The 2007 title runner-up is at his most dangerous when left unattended at the front, and Rossi initially struggled to hunt down the Spaniard. The pair were almost even in terms of best lap time, but Rossi was more consistent and Pedrosa's advantage suddenly evaporated. Rossi ultimately made his victory pass on lap 18 of 27 and confirmed his 98th career win by 2.7sec over Pedrosa at the chequered flag.

Afterwards, Rossi rejected claims that he had been sandbagging on Saturday, when he qualified 0.7sec behind Lorenzo. “This is a wonderful victory because yesterday we were really quite worried,” he said. “I couldn't ride how I wanted to and it was very hard.

"We had to work all together to understand how to fix the problem and finally we made a big change to try to make the bike feel how I like in the corner, which worked, so I have to say a huge thank you to Jeremy [Burgess] and all my guys. This morning we could tell immediately that things were much better and then we made a couple more small changes after warm-up, which made my M1 feel even better. “In the first few laps I was behind but I came and had a great fight with Casey. When I arrived in second place, Dani was more than one-second ahead and I know Dani is very difficult to catch," continued Rossi.

“I tried to concentrate and push. At first I didn't gain, but lap by lap I was able to improve my pace and be consistent. My bike worked very well and I was fast with a sliding tyre so I was able to catch and then overtake Dani. “To win at Jerez is fantastic. It is always a great pleasure and I'm proud to get my first victory of the year.”

On the slow down lap, Rossi repeated his famous 'portaloo' celebration from the 1999 Spanish 250GP. “It's ten years since I made the joke with the toilet here and so I thought it would be funny to do it again if I won!” he said. “Now I hope that the changes we've made here will help us for the rest of the season.” “This is a very important victory and after two second places everyone in the team was waiting for it and really wanted it,” admitted team manager Davide Brivio. “To win like this is something special; after being in trouble and quite sad on Saturday there was a lot of effort, long meetings, hard work by all the engineers, mechanics and technicians and finally we were able to give a good package to Valentino. “If you can make Valentino feel happy on the bike then he will always give you this kind of performance and today it was wonderful to watch." With Lorenzo crashing out of fourth place late in the race, Rossi is now eleven points clear of Stoner heading into round four, the French Grand Prix at Le Mans, with Pedrosa and Lorenzo both 24 points from the top in third.

World Superbikes

Assen – April 26^th

Ben Spies (Yamaha World Superbike) and Noriyuki Haga (Ducati Xerox) continued their two-way domination of the 2009 Hannspree FIM Superbike World Championship at the Assen TT Circuit in the Netherlands by taking a win apiece in front of 76,000 spectators.

The Texan pulled out a fantastic pass on his Japanese rival to take a last-gasp win in the first race, but then crashed out of race 2 early on, leaving Haga the winner. Leon Haslam rode superbly to take home two podiums for the Stiggy Racing Honda team, while Jakub Smrz (Guandalini Ducati) scored his best-ever result with third in race 2. In the championship Haga now has a 60-point lead over Spies, 180 to 120.

Race 1 Spies took his fourth win of the season by forcing his way past points leader Haga in a thrilling final lap. The decisive move came a couple of turns from the flag, and the Texan then closed the door on his rival to win. Third place went to Haslam, who had the satisfaction of recording a new lap record. Yamaha's good all-round performance was completed with fourth place for Tom Sykes, the British rider finishing ahead of Max Biaggi (Aprilia), well up again after struggling in qualifying. Sixth place went to Smrz, while Michel Fabrizio could only manage eighth with the second factory Ducati. Troy Corser put in a good performance on the BMW, while Max Neukirchner (Suzuki Alstare) could only finish 13th after crashing out from second place and then rejoining. Carlos Checa (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) also crashed out while trying to catch up after a poor start.

Ben Spies: "I was trying to set a really good pace in the first few laps, but just didn't have the same feeling I had in practice with the bike, and Nori came by and I saw nobody was behind Haslam, so I just sat back and watched. When the tyres started going off we made some moves, there were some close moments with Leon but we kept it clean. I knew I had to go and I fought it out with Nori over the last two laps. Actually I didn't know where to pass Nori, but I got a good run and it was close."

Noriyuki Haga: "I am a little bit disappointed but we did a very good race. I got a good start but just at the beginning of the race Ben was quite faster and I tried to catch up with him. It was difficult because I had a little problem with the bike. I caught up again and passed him and tried to push but couldn't. So at this point I just lost a few points for the championship."

Leon Haslam: "I felt really good to be fair, the race pace was good and I was just sitting behind Nori. I was losing a lot of time out of the hairpin and onto the start-finish straight and was trying to match Nori through there and the next minute me and Spies had a good elbow session but it was a fantastic race and again a big thanks to the team to give me a package to do that."

Results: 1. Spies B. (USA) Yamaha; 2. Haga N. (JPN) Ducati; 3. Haslam L. (GBR) Honda;

10. Corser T. (AUS) BMW; 12. Muggeridge K. (AUS) Suzuki.

Race 2 The outcome was decided on lap 2 when Spies slid off into the gravel while in the lead. This left Haga with an unchallenged run to the flag as he levelled the score with Spies with his fourth win of the year, together with a new fastest lap. Haslam improved on his result in the first encounter with a second place in race 2, the British rider now proving to be a true podium contender. Smrz scored his first-ever career podium in third, the Czech rider getting the better of Fabrizio in the final stages. The Italian had a broken gearbox in the end but managed to bring his 1098 home fourth. In the all-British battle for fifth, Jonathan Rea (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) got the edge over Sykes. Suzuki's disappointing weekend was completed with a ninth place for Neukirchner and 12th for Yukio Kagayama. Corser scored another tenth place for BMW, just ahead of team-mate Ruben Xaus. Biaggi's race came to an end at the start with a clutch problem, while Shinya Nakano failed to take the start after his crash in race 1 in which he damaged his previously operated-on shoulder.

Noriyuki Haga: "First of all, I'm sorry for Ben and his crash, I hope he is fine. After the first race we changed the suspension a little bit and the bike was really comfortable, so a big thanks to everyone in the team. It's nine years since I won here, in 2000, so I'm very happy and now I'm looking forward to Monza."

Leon Haslam: "I was a little bit ambitious into the first turn but I thought the pace was OK. I rose through to pass Fabrizio, but it took me a lot of the race and when I finally did get past, there wasn't much left and maybe with the cooler conditions the grip wasn't quite so high. I made a few little mistakes but managed to get enough of a break to run into second."

Jakub Smrz: "I was just staying behind Michel and he had a problem or something, it was really close but I could just pass him at the finish. I'm really happy because everybody said before that I can be fast only in qualifying, so now I showed everyone that I can be fast in the race as well and it's a great result for me and the team."

Results: 1. Haga N. (JPN) Ducati; 2. Haslam L. (GBR) Honda; 3. Smrz J. (CZE) Ducati;

10. Corser T. (AUS) BMW; 13. Roberts B. (AUS) Ducati.

World Supersport

The Supersport race saw a second win of the year for Irishman Eugene Laverty (Honda), who held off a last-lap attack from Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha), the new points leader. Third went to Joan Lascorz (Kawasaki), who led for much of the race before losing out to his two rivals in the final stages. Fabien Foret (Yamaha) was again up at the front, the Frenchman scoring his best result of the season in fourth, while Kenan Sofuoglu (Honda) managed to salvage a fifth place in a disappointing day for the Dutch team, who lost Andrew Pitt in a crash while fighting for a podium place. Mark Aitchison (Honda) was next up, ahead of fellow Aussie Anthony West (Honda) and Dutchman Barry Veneman (Suzuki).

Results: 1. Laverty E. (IRL) Honda; 2. Crutchlow C. (GBR) Yamaha; 3. Lascorz J. (ESP) Kawasaki;

6. Aitchison M. (AUS) Honda; 7. West A. (AUS) Honda.

AMA

May 3, 2009 - Mat Mladin turned in a successful performance at Barber Motorsports Park on a wild weather day in central Alabama. The day's three races were delayed by two hours and each race was shortened five laps from its scheduled distance as a band of severe storms swept through the area and tornado warnings were issued in the early afternoon.

However, not even the weather could stop Mladin's run of dominance in 2009 AMA Superbike on a weekend when sevens were wild for Mladin. Mladin fittingly rode the #7 Rockstar/Makita Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 to his seventh consecutive victory to open the season and extended his lead in the point standings as he looks for his seventh career American Superbike championship. Mladin leads teammate Tommy Hayden by 77 points, 220-143, after seven of 20 rounds in the 2009 championship.

Just as he did in Saturday's first race doubleheader, Mladin started from pole and surrendered the lead heading into the first turn. A lap-and-a-half later, however, the Australian muscled past leader Josh Hayes in Turn 5 and led the rest the way en route to a 2.745-second victory over Aaron Yates. It was Mladin's 79th career AMA victory and moved him to within seven of Miguel Duhamel's record of 86 career wins. "I've had seven in a row, and obviously nobody has had any more than seven before so we'll see if we can go to Infineon and get another one," said Mladin, who earned his fifth consecutive Barber Motorsports Park victory and ninth overall. "The bike worked great today, we found some stuff out this morning in the warm up.  I had a completely different motorcycle this afternoon and very similar lap times to what I did this morning even with the condition of the track.  It was pretty good. I'm pretty happy with the bike.  We definitely made some progress this week."

The runner-up result was the best of the season for Yates on the Suzuki GSX-R1000, topping a previous best ride of fifth in the second race of the Road Atlanta doubleheader last month. Mladin, Yates and Hayden were three of the six riders utilizing the 2009 Suzuki GSX-R1000 for the first time this weekend and were joined on the new bikes by Blake Young (Suzuki); Geoff May (Suzuki) & Chris Ulrich (Suzuki).

"It's been an up-and-down year for us," said Yates. "We got the '09 Suzuki a couple of weeks ago, did some riding on it and got a few things sorted out.  I'm really feeling good about the bike; it's running pretty good.  We had a good package in yesterday's race also, I just kind of messed up the start on that and it put us way back. It really feels good to get up here, back on the podium and show that the Jordan Suzuki guys are working hard and the new GSX-R1000 is going good."

One day after earning his first AMA Pro American Superbike podium of the season with a third-place run, Ben Bostrom duplicated that effort on the No. 2 Yamaha Motor Corp. USA Yamaha R1. The performance moved Bostrom to fifth in the American Superbike point standings and he now trails Young by just one championship marker.