With his team-mate Kenan Sofuoglu (Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR600RR) riding a mature and forceful ride to third place at Brno, championship leader Sebastien Charpentier (Winston Ten Kate Honda) fought against rear traction problems throughout the 18-lap race to score 11th place. The five points he earned were vital to his overall title ambitions, as his chief rival Kevin Curtain scored his first race win of the 2006 season. Charpentier now has a ten point lead, with seven of 12 rounds completed.

Sofuoglu, who was in the top three for the entire race, scored his second career Supersport podium, to add to his third place at Qatar during the opening round of the series. He had qualified in second at Brno, with Charpentier fifth on the grid. Sofuoglu has now promoted himself one place in the championship standings and is eighth, on 51 points.

Yoann Tiberio (Team Megabike Honda CBR600RR) replicated his fourth place in qualifying in the race, some 19 seconds from the winner, after experiencing traction problems in the hot 47°C track temperatures. His team-mate, in the absence of regular rider Katsuaki Fujiwara (Team Megabike Honda CBR600RR), was once more Simone Sanna (Team Megabike Honda CBR600RR), who scored ninth place. Sanna had qualified sixth, making it four Hondas in the pre-race top six.

Honda still has a firm grip on the Manufacturers’ Championship battle, with an 18-point lead over the next closest challenger, and by five race wins to two.

Sofuoglu’s second podium of the year gives him hope that he can continue to record more, in the remaining five rounds.

“I am happy because I am back on the podium and gained a lot more experience in running near the front in World Supersport,’ said Sofuoglu.
“I think from now on I can make a high standard and in all the races I will be aiming for a podium. I was just as fast as the other two bikes in most places but I lost a bit entering the start-finish straight; so later in the race I could not try to pass them. After half of the race the bike started to move too much. But I am happy to make a podium for the team and they have worked really hard with me.”

Charpentier’s 11th place earned him five points, and he is now on 121 points, ten ahead of Curtain, and 27 ahead of Parkes.

“From the very start of the race it was very difficult for me because I felt the rear spinning too much and it stayed like that for all the race,”
said Charpentier, who had a fall shortly before the race started, in morning warm-up. “It was impossible to get closer to the leaders in front because of that, so it was disappointing not to get more points. But we still have a ten point lead going into Brands Hatch, and it could have turned out a lot worse.”

Tiberio cited a lack of rear grip after the first few laps as the reason for his inability to get into contention with the podium men, but he set a new lap record of 2’06.602, on his second lap.

"I would have liked to have followed the three in front but it was impossible,” said Tiberio after a tough 18-lap race. “It was better to finish fourth than to crash. More points for the championship, to take forward to the next race. The tyres were not so bad because I finished fourth but it was impossible to do more.”

Sanna had reduced feel and grip from his front in the race, with his team looking into the reason why after the race.

"I did not have the same confidence in the front in this race, although we chose the same tyre we used before,” said the rider who scored second at Misano. “So something has changed but we need to look into what. Maybe the track conditions were a factor as well.”

World Superbike Round 7 of 12

FABRIZIO TAKES FIRST CAREER PODIUMS AS TOSELAND SCORES SECOND

Both James Toseland (Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) and Michel Fabrizio (DFX Treme Honda CBR1000RR) took podium finishes at the 5.403km Brno circuit, with Toseland second in race one, and Fabrizio - an SBK rookie - taking third in the opener and an astonishing second in race two.

Race one was led by Toseland for 14 laps, until eventual winner Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki) set a pace Toseland’s tyres could not longer match.
Toseland ran out an assured second, matching his Superpole performance, but arguably the ride of the race came from recently injured Michel Fabrizio (DFX Treme Honda CBR1000RR), who had recently broken his collarbone while riding in the MotoGP race at Donington. The young Italian rider passed two competitors on the last lap to take third, after a mid race charge from his qualifying position of 12th.

Pierfrancesco Chil (DFX Treme Honda CBR1000RR) went tenth (improving from 16th and last in Superpole) ahead of a fading Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) who took points for 11th place, after placing eighth in Superpole. Alex Barros (Klaffi Honda CBR1000RR) underlined an unhappy practice and Superpole qualifying, which put him only 15th on the grid, by retiring on lap nine, complaining of a lack of front grip and overheating problems.

Toseland’s possible podium in race two dwindled to as he found right hand corners increasingly difficult to enter and exit, and he clung onto a fifth place. After another blitz through the field, Fabrizio set up a true grandstand finish by overtaking both Troy Corer and Noryuki Haga in the space of the final chicane, making for one of the most forceful finishes in World Superbike history. Kagayama took the second race win, 2.4 seconds clear of Fabrizio.

Championship leader Troy Bayliss suffered a crash in race one, after a first corner collision, and dropped from a probably fourth to eighth, as the hot 52°C track temperatures took their toll. His disappointment was Toseland’s partial gain, as he made ground to the lead. Bayliss sits on 262, Haga on 189 and Toseland - third by a single point - on 188.

Toseland, having suffered a series of misadventures over race weekend, was philosophical about the way it ended, and glad to have made up ground to Bayliss.

“It was good to get a podium in race one but there was nothing I could do when Kagayama went past me,” said Toseland. “It was strange in race two, because later in the race I was having trouble with grip on the rights, both front and rear. The little bit higher temperature in the second race made the difference, and I made a couple of silly mistakes. It was a difficult weekend; to have a crash just before Superpole and then a collision this morning. So in some ways I’m happy the way things worked out
- but we could have taken advantage of Bayliss having a bad weekend a bit more than we did. But we’ll keep chipping away.”

For Fabrizio, now ninth in the championship, his last lap move in race two was one laden with risk, and eventual joy, but being in a position to score podiums was largely down to a recent Brno tyre test.

“It was important to test in June with DFX at Brno,” said Fabrizio. “After five or six laps of race one I had some problems with grip but my race pace was OK, so when I saw the others in front I thought ‘let’s push to try and take them.’ Something just clicked in my head that I could catch them. For my riding style, when the tyres slide it is better for me. Same thing happened in race two, but when I saw Corser and Haga in front right at the end I thought it would be possible to overtake them.”

Muggeridge, 14th overall in the series, felt that his change between race one and two paid off, but still had to fight for every place.

“In race one we didn’t have on the right front tyre I think,” said Muggeridge. “In race two, until lap ten, all was OK, then the grip on the corner exits started to drop off, the bike wanted to move around and it was more difficult to control. After 16 laps it got a bit worse again and just kept the bike up to finish the race. I’m not too satisfied with the results but at least we have scored two races in the points.”

Chili felt that his physical condition was responsible for him pulling in on race two, leaving him 19th in the championship chase.

“In race one I was happy enough, despite the drop of in grip as the tyres got hot,” said Chili. “In race two I was very tired but my right hand started to freeze and cramp up, stopping me braking properly, so I decided to pull in.”

Barros had a disastrous weekend by his recent high standards, feeling ill from day one, and experiencing problems in the races. He dropped points to the other top riders, and now sits on 151, in fifth place.

“The whole weekend was really disappointing and it took all my energy,” said Barros, 11th in race two. “I did my best, the starts were OK, but it was not possible to achieve better results. In the first race I had some very bad moments with the front and had to work hard to not crash.”

Brands Hatch hosts the next WSS and SBK rounds, between 4 and 6 August.