CORSER AND HAGA TRADE WINS IN BRANDS HATCH CLASSICS - CORSER THE FIRST AND HAGA THE SECOND Troy Corser (Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra) and Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia) once more shared the spoils of a World Superbike weekend, after two astonishingly close and competitive contests between the Aussie and Japanese aces. Haga made the difference between race one and race two by changing machine settings and being even more aggressive in the early laps, setting a race time even faster than the first 25-lapper. Corser now leads the championship chase by 110 points.

RACE ONE Corser hammered out to the front of the pack from pole and looked like he may perform one his occasional disappearing acts. But Haga had other plans, sticking with him to eventually join in a classic spectacle of riposte and parry around the undulating 4.2km circuit. Just behind, Regis Laconi (Ducati Xerox) closed up an early gap to finish third. A personal battle for fourth went to Aussie rider Chris Vermeulen (Winston Ten Kate Honda) on the last lap, as he overcame the best efforts of Chris Walker (PSG-1 Kawasaki).

RACE TWO Haga realised he had to overcome the leading threat of Troy Corser in race one and then push hard to change Corser’s winning game plan and he duly managed it - but only after Corser made a mistake by diving too fast into the drop down Pilgrims, running off track. Corser nonetheless showed great skill to recover his composure and retain second place. Vermeulen, who earned the podium he missed out on in race one, made it three different bikes on the podium once more, this time adding a Honda, and substituting a Ducati. Walker took a home town fourth, but James Toseland (Ducati Xerox) dropped from a possible podium place behind Haga and Corser to seventh, his only race finish of the day after an electrical problem in race one.

OFF PODIUM BATTLES STILL CLOSELY CONTESTED The warring factions of World Superbike were not just limited to the podium places or top five, as Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda) finished sixth in race one before crashing out in race two, suffering a slight fracture of his right hand. Andrew Pitt, Abe’s team-mate) was in the hunt all day at Brands, finishing with a seventh and sixth place. Laconi was fifth in race two.

The continuing good form of Italian privateer Lorenzo Lanzi (SC Caracchi Ducati) was eighth in each race, ahead of the injured Alstare Suzuki Alstare rider Yukio Kagayama on each occasion. A return to personal form, and better power outputs from his Renegade Honda engine, put Ben Bostrom 12th and then 10th on his CBR1000RR. For some other star Honda competitors it was a harsher day in front of SBK’s biggest crowd.

HONDA DUO DOWN THE ORDER Pierfrancesco Chili (Klaffi Honda) retired from a non points scoring position in race one and recovered only to 13th in race two. Max Neukirchner (Klaffi Honda) was tenth in race one, 12th in the second, but compared to his earlier season form he was disappointed with the results. Norick Abe fought hard from his lowly grid position for 11th in race one, but a clash and crash with Steve Martin (Petronas) saw both down and out of race two.

PETRONAS MAKES THE POINT THROUGH MARTIN The unique Malaysian Petronas FP-1 machines of Steve Martin and Garry McCoy mustered a single point at Brands, for Martin in race one. McCoy retired with a broken water hose clip in race one and then took 18th, as Martin crashed after a collision with Abe.

CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS Corser’s win and second place, compared to his closest challenger Vermeulen’s fourth and third, puts him on a total of 344 to Vermeulen’s 234. Regis Laconi is third with 214 and Kagayama fourth on 172. Haga’s high score puts him sixth, with 167.

WORLD SUPERSPORT CHAMPIONSHIP Sebastien Charpentier (Winston Ten Kate Honda) won his sixth race of the season, ahead of young charger Michel Fabrizio (Team Italia Megabike Honda) and Yamaha rider Kevin Curtain (Yamaha Motor Germany). Former Brands race winner Stephane Chambon (Gil Motorsports Honda) scored an impressive fourth ahead of Fabien Foret (Team Italia Megabike Honda) and Katsuaki Fujiwara (Winston Ten Kate Honda). Alessio Corradi (Ducati Selmat) was the top Ducati finisher (seventh) ahead of local wild card Craig Jones (Northpoint Ekerold Honda).
Charpentier now leads Fujiwara by a whopping 190 points to Fuji’s 116, with Curtain third on 109. Fourth place Foret is separated by only three points from his team mate Fabrizio, with Foret on 85 and Fabrizio on 83.


SUPERSTOCK 1000 FIM CUP A runaway five second win by Turkish rider Kenan Sofuoglu (Yamaha Motor Germany) saw him top the championship with a score of 111 points, 18 ahead of second placed rider, Craig Coxhell (EMS Suzuki), who was fifth in the race. Four riders battled for second place at one stage, but in an eventual man-to-man battle, Luca Scassa (Ormeni Racing Yamaha R1) scored second place, ahead of Alessandro Polita (Celani Suzuki Italia). Craig Coxhell was beaten into fifth place by Alstare Suzuki rider, Riccardo Chiarello, after dropping pace mid race.

SUPERSTOCK 600 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP Claudio Corti (Trasimeno Yamaha) took the win in the smaller Superstock class, with Niccolo Canepa (Bertocchi Kawasaki) in second place, only 0.5 seconds down after Corti’s earlier domination. Yoann Tiberio (Team Megabike Junior Honda) retired from the race leaving Maxine Berger third. The points score now stands at Corti 136, Tiberio 110 and Canepa 85.