The WSBK championships heads to Donington Park for the ninth round this weekend. Ben Spies and Jonathan Rea took wins at the previous round in Italy, but Noriyuki Haga still leads the championship after third and fifth place finishes at Misano. At this point it looks like the championship will come down to a battle beteween Haga, Spies and Michel Fabrizio, but Spies has to make up 48 points and Fabrizio has to close a 55 point gap.World Superbike Superpole Results
Haga has three wins at the track, but two of those came in 1998 and last year he had two DNF’s, ”I actually like this track and always find strange conditions here, but I hope this weekend it will be sunshine and I have to try and win again. Last year I didn't have much luck at Donington at all, but if I put that aside, over the years I've done okay there and have had some race wins.”
Ben Spies raced at Donington last year and finished 14th in his first ride on a MotoGP bike so it’s a circuit he knows. Crew chief Tom Houseworth talked about the circuit, “Donington is a circuit Ben has raced on before so we know where we are going. As far as setup is concerned we really don't have any info from his past experience there though. The circuit has average grip so the focus is to look for grip as well as tire life, as always. Rain is a strong possibility at this event so we need to be ready for that as well. For this circuit both bikes will be set up a bit different to explore options for more grip or better turning, which bike we continue with depends on Ben's comments after the first session. If we have any rain we will have a wet bike and a dry bike. The wet set up is not too much different than the dry set up however we do use a different map for wet conditions.”
Fabrizio’s results after four races at Donington are a 5th, 12th ,13th and a DNF, but he’s been on the podium in the last eight races, “I need to secure more race wins, so that's my aim, starting from this weekend at Donington. The best I've done there until now is 5th , but I'd always done badly at Misano, and then that changed this year. So we'll see if I can make a similar improvement in the UK.”
The 2008 races saw four different manufacturers on the podium:
Race #1
1. Bayliss (Ducati)
2. Sykes (Suzuki)
3. Biaggi (Ducati).
Race #2
1. Kiyonari (Honda)
2. Crutchlow (Honda)
3. Corser (Yamaha)
The Donington round will be a homecoming for Tom Sykes, Leon Haslam and Shane Byrne. Byrne is coming off a podium finish at Misano, and Sykes finished second at Donington last year as a wild-card rider from the British Superbike Series. Leon Camier and James Ellison will be riding as wild-cards this year, and they are currently sitting in first and second place in the BSB championship
The Ten Kate team has improved after struggling at the start of the season. The team has added some new suspension parts to the bikes, and Jonathan Rea took his first WSBK win and the team’s first win of the season at Misano. Rea is hoping for more improvement from the bike, “We have only had four or five days with our new suspension so with another seven in between we will get even better.” Rea’s teammate, Ryuichi Kiyonari, won race two last year with an impressive display of wet weather riding.
After several years without a rider in World Superbike the number of Americans in the series is beginning to grow. This week Ben Spies, Jamie Hacking, John Hopkins and the 21 year old Blake Young will be representing the U.S. Hopkins tried to make his return at Misano, but he needed more time to recover from his injuries at Assen. Young will be replacing Fonsi Nieto, who was riding for the injured Max Neukirchner. Steve Dicterow, part of Young’s management team, says the ride came together by chance, “Blake and Kevin Schwantz were over at the World Superbike race this weekend at Misano. I don’t know all the details, but somehow along the weekend it became clear Fonsi Nieto would not be riding this coming weekend. The team approached Blake and asked if he would be willing to be a wild card for the race. Blake has expressed in the past that he would be interested in pursuing an international racing career at some point, but I can tell you to an absolute certainty that we had no idea this would happen. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
Weather Forecast:
Fri: Showers - 72
Sat: Clouds & Sun - 72
Sun: Showers - 73
Speed Air Times:
Race #1 – Sun (6/28) – 3:00 pm (EST)
Race #2 – Sun (6/28) – 4:00 pm (EST)
Circuit Data:
Circuit length: 4.023 km
Pole position: left
Corners left: 5
Corners right: 10
Race distance: 23 laps = 92.529 km
