All of the news leading up to this weekend’s round in France has been about riders moving to and from World Superbike. Here’s some of the changes that were announced this past week:Ben Spies to Tech 3 Yamaha (MotoGP)
James Toseland to Yamaha (WSBK)
Cal Crutchlow to Yamaha (WSBK)
Chris Vermuelen to Kawasaki (WSBK)
Leon Camier (BSB champ) riding Aprilia for last two rounds
Definitely an eventful week, but with that out of the way the riders can get down to the real business at hand which is a championship fight that has Noriyuki Haga leading Ben Spies by three points with a hundred points up for grabs. Haga came away with a first and a second at the last round while Spies struggled to a fourth and a fifth. Haga’s teammate, Michel Fabrizio, could have easily let him win the second race at Imola, but he was clearly the stronger rider. It will be interesting to see if Fabrizio’s tactics change in the last two rounds.
Spies talked to superbikeplanet’s Dean Adams about last weekend’s round at Imola:
Spies said the pre-race premonition he had that Imola is a 'Ducati track' feels like it came true. "It's not an excuse, at all," he said. "I rode, again, as hard as I could. If you look at the past year, you look at how the bikes were - the Aprilias and the Ducatis, the Aprilia's kind of not really a four-cylinder, not really a twin. It's kind of like a GP bike. It's a good package. And the Ducati, any place you go to that's bumpy and has low grip, just the way the Ducati's built, it's going to be better than most of the bikes.”
"That's what it comes down to. Valencia, Kyalami and here, they've definitely got an advantage. We've got advantages at other tracks. Miller, the bike worked good. Qatar it worked good. Phillip Island. Portugal it's going to work really good. And I think Magny-Cours. I haven't been there, but I think, besides the two first-gear corners, I think the bike's going to be strong there. So yeah, like I said, I knew it coming in. I said it. But that didn't stop me from trying to beat them, but we just knew we were going to have to really have all our stuff together to do it. I think we did a good job. We lost the championship lead, but we still got - basically, we got four races to go, so we got plenty. We got 100 points on the table."
So it’s all come down to the last two rounds of the season. Some will say that the pressure is on Spies because he’s leaving the championship for MotoGP and Yamaha wants to win their first WSBK title now. But Spies grew up dealing with the pressure of fighting for titles with Mat Mladin, and won the 2007 AMA Superbike Championship by one point. After nine full seasons in WSBK Haga has finished second or third six times, but he’s never been able to come away with the title. In all likelihood both riders will be feeling the pressure, and with so many strong riders in the field they’ll be fighting more than each other to get the points they need to win the championship. Should be interesting.
Practice Session #1 – Rea quickest (Haga 3rd, Spies 7th)
SPEED Television Coverage on Sunday (10/04):
Race #1 – 3:00pm (EST)
Race #2 – 4:00pm (EST)
