Haga and Corser ready for Brno challenge
Added on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments
Haga wants to add to his previous Brno wins
Confidence is high at Yamaha Motor Italia with both Noriyuki Haga and Troy Corser ready to take on the resurfaced Brno circuit in round nine of the Superbike World Championship this Saturday.
Haga arrives in the Czech Republic fourth in the overall championship, with teammate Corser just six points behind him. The pair hope to extend their run as the most effective team-mates in the field; Haga is currently on four race wins for the season whilst Corser has clocked up six podium finishes.
Both riders have tasted success at Brno in the past, Corser leading the way with three wins to Haga’s one. That single triumph came in the second race in 2005. Corser, incidentally, won the first.
As recently as last year, the Yamaha duo traded fastest laps over the two races, but with both riders keen to make up as much ground as possible on series leader Troy Bayliss, another Haga/Corser one-two would be most welcome.
Haga, 68 points behind Bayliss, said: “For Brno I have to work hard to keep the points scores high and move up. We had a decent test at Vallelunga recently, and got good results when running a full race set-up, so we are happy with that, of course. Our goal this weekend is consistency while staying fast.
“My physical situation is better but where I broke my collarbone is kind of ‘itchy’, I think because it is healing! For Brno practice has been good in the past but some of the races have gone a strange way. But for sure we cannot lose any more points. We need some more consistent races now.”
Set in the southern regions of the Czech Republic, the Automotodrom Brno is a pure crowd pleaser, with the fastest chicanes of any circuit in the series. Corser is hoping to secure his first win of the season and feels he knows the track as intimately as any other rider.
He said: “Brno should be good this year and last year wasn’t too bad for us at some stages. The bike is certainly better this year as well. It will all come down to the tyres, how many laps we can get out of them at full pace. We’ll see how the track temperature is because Brno’s been resurfaced and it’s usually a hot weekend over there.”
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