Round 7: Assen, The Netherlands Track length: 6027 m Opened: 1955 Fastest lap ever: tbc Superbike lap record: tbc Last year Superbike winners: Chris Vermeulen (Honda) and James Toseland (Ducati) Yamaha Motor Italia riders Noriyuki Haga and Andrew Pitt go to the Dutch round of the Superbike World Championship looking to write their own small piece of motorcycling history. This weekend’s races will be the last world championship event to be held on the legendary 6km circuit before the bulldozers move in to shorten the northern loop section of the track, making way for a new hotel and entertainment complex. The Yamaha riders go to the Dutch race well rested and in high spirits. Haga has been in inspirational form in the last two rounds, winning in both Brno and Brands Hatch to climb to fifth in the championship and move within five points of fourth placed Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki). “I was very happy after Brands Hatch,” commented Haga, who has spent the four weeks since the last race holidaying with his family. “I know that I cannot win the championship so my aim now is just to win races. I do not care about my championship position if it is not champion but I know that we can win races so I will be trying maximum for win is Assen. I also hope to try out a new engine. All season I have asked for more engine power. My feeling with the chassis is now very good and with more power it will make my job easier!” The long-awaited new specification engine has been track tested by Pitt, who completed a day’s testing at Alfa Romeo’s Bolloco test track. The Australian, who finished third on his on his debut with the team at last year’s Assen world supersport event and is hoping for a similar result at the famous circuit this year. “I love riding at Assen and we got a good result there last year,” he explained. “We got back on track at Brands Hatch. I felt a lot more comfortable on the bike and that gives you the confidence to push hard so, yes, I’m really looking forward to the weekend.” Team coordinator Massimo Meregalli was satisfied with the outcome of the shakedown runs, commenting: “Overall Andrew’s feeling was very good. He didn’t notice much change in the characteristics of the new engine but the dyno and datalogging figures all suggest that it is better in all areas. Since the test we have carried out reliability runs on the dyno without any problems. We are building up the engines now and will make the decision on which engine to race during the race weekend.” Another rider looking for a good result in Assen in Yamaha Motor France’s Norick Abe. The Japanese is no stranger to the circuit from his MotoGP days, and has proven to be quick on tracks he knows. He goes to Assen tenth in the championship, one place behind Pitt. Haga hits double milestone in Assen Noriyuki Haga is due to hit two important milestones in the second race at Assen: his 150th start in the Superbike World Championship and his 100th on a Yamaha. The ever popular 29-year-old Japanese made his debut as a wild-card rider at the 1994 Japanese round at Sugo. Riding a privately entered Ducati, Haga made an inauspicious start with a 12th place in race two. Two years later Noriyuki announced himself to with world after grabbing his first class podium at the same venue, taking his Yamaha YZF750 to second place in race one. After Sunday’s races, Haga will have made 100 starts riding Yamaha, 26 on Aprilia and 24 on Ducati. In his 148 races to date, he has scored 19 wins and 25 other podium placings. Supersport World Championship – Curtain targets second Having produced a stunning display to finish third at Brands Hatch, Yamaha Motor Germany’s Kevin Curtain heads to Assen looking for his first win of the season and a chance to move up to second in the championship. Championship leader Sebastien Charpentier (Honda) looks to have one hand on the title with a 74 point advantage going to the Netherlands. Curtain was one of the form men at Assen last year, only being denied a podium finish when another rider took him out at the final corner, and now he has his sights firmly set on the runners-up position presently occupied by Katsuaki Fujiwara (Honda), who is currently seven points ahead of the Australian Yamaha rider. Team-mate Broc Parkes is also aiming for a reversal of fortunes at Assen. The 23-year-old goes to the Dutch race on the back of two non-finishes that have seen him slip back to seventh in the championship. Parkes is also no stranger to the Assen track, having finished fourth there last season. Superstock – young guns going for it in Assen Yamaha R6 Cup graduates Kenan Sofuoglu and Massimo Roccoli continue to battle for honours in this series for young riders running virtually stock 1000cc sports machines, with Sofuoglu’s Brands Hatch win taking him back to the head of the championship. The Turkish rider is almost completely recovered from hand injury that saw him miss the Misano round in June and, with Roccoli crashing in Brands, he now has a 18 point advantage in the championship – the Italian slipping back to third behind Craig Coxhell (Suzuki). Last season Sofuoglu grabbed third place behind fellow Yamaha riders Lorenzo Alfonsi and Gianluca Vizziello, while Belgian team-mate Didier van Keymeulen took the lap record at what is his local race. Van Keymeulen currently lies fourth in the series and could kickstart a late bid for the title with a win in Assen. In the 600cc superstock class, Italian Yamaha R6 rider Claudio Corti goes to the Netherlands with a 26 point advantage at the head of the championship. More, from a press release issued by Pirelli: It’s time for Assen, a track that doesn’t need any introduction, being famously known as the ‘university of motorcycle racing’. In the last round, in England on 7th August, Noriyuki Haga and his Yamaha beat Troy Corser in race two, but the two races were a battleground, providing a great show, based on extreme outbraking and overtaking. It was simply a feast of racing, lapped up by 100,000 spectators. The Championship is living in a magic moment, with five different manufacturers in the first seven championship places, underlining the highly competitive nature of the show. In the leading place Corser still strides the table, but in Brands he proved he is racing with little thought of the Championship, competing as if every race were a championship decider. Everybody will race for the two wins on offer at Assen, a track which has been modified to be safer for all competitors. It is thus a little bit slower than previous years, but still highly demanding. The Dutch track needs a particularly careful choice of tyres, for a host of reasons. First of all the climatic conditions, both in terms of the temperature and the fast changes in the weather throughout the day, mean that things are always far from easy. For Pirelli this means a wide range of different solutions must be made available, in order to face all the different conditions with confidence. But this track always creates some troubles for the riders, who may be asked to take uneasy decisions when experiencing extreme conditions – like rain that falls only on some sections of the track, and not others. Nonetheless, in the case of rain the Assen tarmac performs well: offering good grip and efficient drainage properties. There’s something more that becomes a pivotal point of tyre choice at Assen. The tarmac also creates high temperatures on the central part of the tyre profile, due to the long fast corners and the high-speed changes of direction. Riders will find available to them for a dry race four different front tyres that they have already tried this season, while at the rear they will choose among five different solutions, plus two qualifying tyres. From the same ‘medium’ compound base Pirelli technicians wanted to obtain three different solutions. One made with a harder carcass (that will allow a more precise line) and one of 200mm width (still undergoing testing and development). The final fifth solution is made with a harder compound, but this one showed at Brno that it can work as well as the others. In any case, it will be interesting to see how the riders arrive at their personal decisions. Then there will be the two qualifying tyres, one of which is a multi-compound version. With all this rubber there will be also the intermediate and rain solutions, which drive the total amount of tyres brought solely for the SBK class close to 3,600. That total increases significantly for the entire paddock, as Pirelli is also the sole supplier for the Supersport, Superstock 1000 and Superstock 600 classes.