Preview - Yamaha

World superbike takes its annual trip to Germany this weekend as the impressive EuroSpeedway Lausitz plays host to round ten of the 12 that make up this year's championship.

Last weekend the rain gods wreaked havoc at Assen, with each of the top four riders in the championship going into the weekend crashing at least once in the races. For Yamaha Motor Italia the Dutch races were bittersweet: on one hand Noriyuki Haga missed a golden chance to pull back points on the championship leader Troy Bayliss (Ducati), while Andrew Pitt was the man of the day, taking a second place in each outing to catapult him two places in the championship, up to fourth.

Situated in the former East Germany, EuroSpeedway was opened in 2000 and first played host to the series the following year. The venue comprises of a high-speed oval circuit with an inner road course which is used for the superbikes. The circuit itself consists of several slow speed corners linked by long straights. Previous experiences of the circuit suggest that qualifying will be important as overtaking is difficult due to the layout and 'single-line' nature of the track.

The venue hosted a test for the Pirelli development teams in July, including Yamaha Motor Italia, with Haga fastest and Pitt just one tenth of a second behind. Haga will look to bounce back from his Assen disappointment in the only way he knows, by fighting for the win at a track where he finished on the podium twice last year. The Japanese rider's failure to score in the Netherlands saw him slip back to 102 points behind Bayliss with just 150 points at stake in the final three rounds, making winning the title a tough task for the ever popular Yamaha star.

For team-mate Pitt, the German race gives him an opportunity to continue his impressive form. The top scorer in Assen is now just one place and 33 points behind his more experienced team-mate, with the Australian hoping to add to his tally of five podiums so far this year.

"When your confidence is high you look forward to every race and that's how it is with me just now," explains Pitt. "I'm really enjoying racing just now because our bike is working so well everywhere we go, but it's not just about me as the team has worked so hard to get us to this point. The R1 is not only one of the best bikes on the grid, it is also very consistent and we can now pretty much take it out of the truck and go racing without having to make big changes.

"Assen was a really tough weekend but to get a couple of second places in such differing conditions shows how well the bike is working. Getting ahead of Barros and Corser in the championship was the main thing and now we have to make sure we keep challenging for podiums and wins so that we're ahead of them at the end of the season. We had a really good test at Lausitz about a month ago so the whole team is looking forward to racing here."

In the Supersport World Championship, Yamaha Motor Germany's Kevin Curtain goes to his squad's home race with a seven point advantage over Honda's Sebastien Charpentier after taking second place at a wet Assen race.

"Assen was a great result for me and I'm a lot more confident going to Lausitz," says Curtain. "The objective in Assen was to take points from Charpentier but, equally, it was important not to throw it down the road in those wet conditions. The race was tough because we had no wet weather data, so to come away with a seven point advantage in the championship was about as good as we could ask for.

"Lausitz has been a good track to me in the past. I won there in 2001 and again last year, when I took my first win for Yamaha Motor Germany. We've also tested there and have a lot of set-up information, so we're not going there in the dark like we did in Assen."

Curtain's team-mate and fellow Australian Broc Parkes will be absent from the German race after sustaining serious injuries in Assen. The 24-year-old was leading the race only to crash out after touching a wet white line on the outside of the track. Parkes was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed as having sustained a punctured lung and several broken ribs. Thankfully the injury has proved slightly less serious than originally feared and no operation was required to fix his injured ribs. Parkes is currently recuperating in hospital and former world champion Fabien Foret will take his ride in Germany. The 2002 world champ is no stranger to Yamaha, having raced for the Yamaha Motor Italia supersport team in 2004. The Frenchman started out the year in superbikes and was the obvious replacement for Parkes, having recently left his team by mutual consent. He will ride the latest generation YZF-R6 for the first time in Friday's free practice session.