FIM Supersport World Championship Misano, San Marino June 21, 2009 Race Results (on aggregate time, all on Pirelli tires): 1. Cal CRUTCHLOW (Yamaha YZF-R6), 22 laps, 36:51.032 2. Eugene LAVERTY (Honda CBR600RR), -0.263 second 3. Massimo ROCCOLI (Honda CBR600RR), -16.289 seconds 4. Joan LASCORZ (Kawasaki ZX-6R), -20.894 5. Mark AITCHISON (Honda CBR600RR), -21.615 6. Katsuaki FUJIWARA (Kawasaki ZX-6R), -22.272 7. Anthony WEST (Honda CBR600RR), -25.099 8. Fabien FORET (Yamaha YZF-R6), -26.374 9. Gianluca NANNELLI (Triumph Daytona 675), -34.558, crash 10. Miguel PRAIA (Honda CBR600RR), -49.578 11. Gianluca VIZZIELLO (Honda CBR600RR), -51.446 12. Flavio GENTILE (Honda CBR600RR), -54.391 13. Danilo DELL’OMO (Honda CBR600RR), -60.324 14. Arie VOS (Honda CBR600RR), -71.594 15. Yannick GUERRA (Yamaha YZF-R6), -103.088 16. Robert MURESAN (Triumph Daytona 675), -2 laps, jump start/ride-through penalty 17. Michele PIRRO (Yamaha YZF-R6), -6 laps, DNF, crash, mechanical 18. Garry MCCOY (Triumph Daytona 675), -11 laps, DNF, mechanical/retired 19. Kenan SOFUOGLU (Honda CBR600RR), -14 laps, DNF, crash 20. Barry VENEMAN (Honda CBR600RR), -14 laps, DNF, crash 21. Doni Tata PRADITA (Yamaha YZF-R6), -14 laps, DNF, crash 22. Michael LAVERTY (Honda CBR600RR), -14 laps, DNF, crash 23. Matej SMRZ (Triumph Daytona 675), -14 Laps, DNF, retired 24. Patrik VOSTÁREK (Honda CBR600RR), -17 laps, DNF, crash 25. Robbin HARMS (Honda CBR600RR), -18 laps, DNF, retired 26. Kev COGHLAN (Yamaha YZF-R6), -18 laps, DNF, crash 27. Jesco GÃœNTHER (Honda CBR600RR), -19 laps, DNF, mechanical 28. Alessandro BRANNETTI (Yamaha YZF-R6), -19 laps, DNF, mechanical 29. Andrew PITT (Honda CBR600RR), -20 laps, DNF, crash Championship Point Standings (After 8 of 14 races): 1. Crutchlow, 160 points 2. Eugene Laverty, 146 3. Sofuoglu, 108 4. Lascorz, 86 5. West, 75 6. Pitt, 73 7. Foret, 63 8. Aitchison, 61 9. Pirro, 48 10. Roccoli, 40 11. TIE, Fujiwara/McCoy, 39 13. Lagrive, 38 14. Veneman, 30 15. TIE, Harms/Nannelli, 23 17. Praia, 18 18. Vizziello, 15 19. Pradita, 8 20. TIE, Michael Laverty/Franco Battaini/Vostarek, 5 More, from a press release issued by Parkalgar Honda: Eugene second while Miguel scores maiden top 10 PARKALGAR HONDA’S Eugene Laverty took a hard-fought second place in an epic battle for the victory while his team mate Miguel Praia scored 10th, his career best result, at the eighth round of the World Supersport Championship at Misano in San Marino, Italy. Eugene was leading when the race was red flagged after eight laps. The restarted 14-lap race was a constant battle with eventual race winner Cal Crutchlow on a Yamaha, with both riders going under the 1m 39seconds on a last super-fast lap. Miguel slotted into 10th place with four laps to go and was never going to give it up. The next round of the World Supersport Championship is at Donington Park in the UK in one week’s time on Sunday, June 28th. Eugene: “I am still reasonably happy with second. In the first half of the race I sliced through from a bad start and 13th to the lead in just three laps. Then in the delay, we made a small change to my Parkalgar Honda and it worked very well. In the second half it was much easier to follow Cal Crutchlow, so much so that when sitting behind him I thought I was being held up but when I took the lead I couldn’t get away. He passed me again and I thought I’d go for plan B which was to get into the final corner and drive out to challenge Cal at the line. I had deliberately held back at that corner in previous laps because I was quicker than him there. Then on the last corner I got in well but got on the gas very early, I may have been too eager, and the rear wheel simply spun up. It was a good race and the lap times at the end were unbelievable, Cal and I are streets ahead of anyone else. I am looking forward to Donington Park next weekend; I’d like to win at home for the team.” Miguel: “Finally we have got into the top 10, this is my best ever race result since joining the World Championship and I am very happy. My Parkalgar Honda is fantastic and the team did a mega job to get me out in the race with such a good set-up after a crash in warm-up. Thank you to my whole Parkalgar Honda team, this is a historical moment for the Portuguese as we have never had a rider this high in this Championship before. Now I will go to Donington which is a good track for me and the home of the team organisation. I scored a podium in British Supersport last year and for sure now we know we can compete I want more than the top 10.” Simon Buckmaster, Parkalgar Honda Team Manager: “It is a shame to be beaten but what a fantastic race that was Eugene and Cal are the two best riders in the Championship and one of them will win the title this year. Congratulations to Cal on taking the win; but Eugene is only 14-points behind in the standings so it is game on with all to play for. I also think the race is another lesson for Kenan Sofuoglu, never once did Cal or Eugene touch at least not until the cool down lap when Eugene collided into Cal when congratulating him, resulting in an embarrassing fall. Big congratulations to Miguel for his best ever finish and it is yet another goal achieved by Parkalgar Honda, getting a Portuguese rider into the top 10. It was a great job by Miguel and I am sure he will beat this result again in the races to come, he has the bike, team and ability to do so.” More, from a press release issued by ParkinGO Triumph BE1 Racing: Unsatisfactory round for team ParkinGo Triumph BE1 Racing at Misano after a positive practice performance. Unfortunately, Garry McCoy retired from the race due to technical problems just a few laps after the second start of a race that was interrupted by the red flag after 7 laps. Gianluca Nannelli finished ninth, a good result standingswise but unsatisfactory for the rider who had hoped to get in the top spots as in the last two races. GARRY McCOY | Triumph Daytona 675 | retired : “I got a good first start and recovered a few positions. I didn’t get a good feeling with the front of the bike but the team solved the issue during the break before the second start. I got a good start again but I had clutch issues right away and after three laps I had to retire from the race”. GIANLUCA NANNELLI | Triumph Daytona 675 | 9th : “I scored six important points in the standings but I wanted to do better. Unfortunately, the weather conditions didn’t allow us to check the machine with a long run. As a consequence, the setup was not the best one and the bike moved a lot in the first part of the race and so I couldn’t perform at my best. In the second part of the race, I didn’t get a good start and lost a few positions so I had to settle for the ninth place.”. GIULIANO ROVELLI – TEAM MANAGER: “Today we didn’t get enough time to work on the machine unlike the non-European rounds where we had more practice sessions which helped us a lot. In Europe we had only 3 sessions yet again but with this kind of weather one session and a half were practically worthless. It’s really hard for us to perform at our best with so little time given the fact that we are a pretty new team in this competition. However, we hope to redeem ourselves next week at Donington”. More, from a press release issued by Stiggy Racing Honda: West takes seventh in Misano, Vizziello eleventh The Misano round is normally one of the hottest events on the World Supersport calendar, but this year it was the rain that dominated the eighth round of the Championship. The tricky wet conditions caused a lack of grip at the track, resulting in a series of crashes in the warm up session. Despite his crash in the third minute, West managed to master the tricky circumstances at the 4.226km Misano track and held a spot in the top of the time sheets for the duration of the wet session. While qualifying and warm-up were undertaken in the wet, the conditions changed once again in the afternoon and the 22-lap Supersport race got underway on a dry track. Just six laps in, the race had to be red flagged following a couple of crashes that left an oil spill at the track. At the drop of the red flag, West found himself in sixth position, followed by Gianluca Vizziello in thirteen. West took a seventh position at the final flag in the aggregated Misano Supersport race – in which no less than 13 riders retired. The Australian took six valuable championship points home and moves up to a fifth place in the standings, while teammate Gianluca Vizziello – currently 18th in the standings – equalled his best performance for the team to date, and finished eleventh in today’s race. Anthony West, 7th: “It has been a strange weekend for me. I crashed twice trying to do the best I can with the bike. I am not happy with the race results. I did the best I could with the package I had this weekend, but it just wasn’t good enough. I need to be at the front. We have made some small improvements over the last race, but still have a lot of work to do. I hope we can improve the bike for Donington and set some better results there.” Gianluca Vizziello, 11th: “I had a good start, but had some problems with the acceleration of my bike. Halfway into the race I also got problems with my front tyre. It was not possible to push myself forward on that tyre. I am disappointed, even though my result is not that bad. We just need to concentrate improving the front end of the machine.” Johan Stigefelt, Team Manager: “We were expecting more from Anthony, and I think he expected more from himself as well, but It didn’t really work out the way we wanted. He took some points home, but it is far away from where we would like to be. Vizziello took an eleventh position today, which is pretty good for him. We need to keep working, we have made a step in the right direction this weekend, but is hard to catch up when you’re too far behind. Hopefully we can improve more for the next race.” More, from a press release issued by Yamaha: Crutchlow adds Misano to his list of conquered circuits With a track both wet and dry and a race red flagged and re-started, it was never going to be a straightforward day for Yamaha World Superbike rider Cal Crutchlow. Having initially dropped back to eighth at the start he showed incredible pace to work back up to lead the race, taking less than two laps to pass the seven riders. He led until a red flag for oil on the track brought the supersport riders back into the pits. As the race re-started Crutchlow shot off to take the lead which he held until lap 18 where second placed rider Eugene Laverty dived underneath having pursued Crutchlow from the off. Two laps later Crutchlow took the lead back in a decisive overtake up the inside of Laverty and powered on to take the chequered flag. Team-mate Fabien Foret worked hard from his less than perfect grid start spot. Race one saw him close in on the top ten, making up several places leading up to the red flag incident. The Frenchman put his head down in the second heat and put in consistent fast laps, much happier in the dry conditions of the race and eventually took Nannelli for eighth at the chequered flag. Crutchlow heads for his home race in Donington leading the championship with 160 points ahead of second placed Laverty on 146. Team-mate Foret also holds onto his seventh spot in the standings and heads to the UK with 63 points, just 10 behind 2008 champion Andrew Pitt. Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha World Supersport Team (1st) “it was great to come here to Misano and take the win. It’s all credit to the team, they did a fantastic job again and we’re back to winning form. Let’s hope we can continue this, bring it home to Donington and take another victory.” Fabien Foret, Yamaha World Supersport Team (8th) “It’s been a tough race weekend for me. Qualifying wasn’t great with the difficult changing weather making it hard to get a good spot on the grid. I put my head down today and worked to get as far up the pack as I could. I’m trying to improve my early laps to stay with the front guys to get back onto the podium.” Wilco Zeelenberg, Yamaha World Supersport Team Manager “Well! It was an unbelievable race I would say. Again Cal and Eugene were very close. I’m so happy Cal was able to keep some distance between them on the last lap with an incredible 1’38.8 which is 1’3 seconds under the lap record, the pace was amazing. It’s going to be hard until the last race! Fabien came from 18th position, so he worked hard. It’s tough as we were expecting him to do better and he knows that so the mission is to practice more and get better first and second laps and he’ll be up there. We’re looking forward to Donington, we can see the hard work the team are doing is paying off.” More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki: Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R Riders In The Top Six WSS, Misano, Republic of San Marino, 21 June 2009 An aggregate World Supersport race at Misano saw both Joan Lascorz and Katsuaki Fujiwara finish strongly, with Joan fourth and Katsuaki sixth. Fujiwara was running in a podium place until the race was stopped due to an oil spill, and despite running at a high pace during the restart he lost places in turn one of the second leg, and was unable to get back into terms with the leading riders. Lascorz was one of those riders in the second leg top group, forming part of a four rider battle that became two fights for the top places on the track, although the results on aggregate proved to be different. With morning practice proving wet, Lascorz, like many of his peers, slid off but was unhurt. He rallied well in the races, but had a lot to do to make up for a qualifying place of tenth. In the championship Lascorz made good ground with his third consecutive fourth place finish, and indeed he sits fourth in the championship, with 86 points. Katsuaki moved up two places today, and is only one point from a top ten ranking, with 39 points to his credit. Joan Lascorz: “I was running well in the second leg of the race, for a time at least. We decided to put in a soft tyre for the second leg of the race, so that we could make up some places in the aggregate, then try to manage the tyre. We ended the race fourth and some of our main championship rivals didn’t finish, but I could not go faster than Roccoli to get the podium.” Katsuaki Fujiwara: “We had a really good chance to get on the podium but it slipped away. My starts were not so bad in each half of the race but when I got the first corner my braking adjuster was gone and I had to pump the brakes and ran wide in the corner. Our race – or races – were good today but it would have been great to get that podium.” More, from a press release issued by HANNspree Ten Kate Honda: Andrew Pitt and Kenan Sofuoglu both crashed out of today’s eighth round World Supersport championship race at Misano in Italy. Neither rider was injured, but the race was red flagged just after Sofuoglu’s crash because of oil on the track, with Britain’s Cal Crutchlow winning on aggregate time after the restart. After yesterday’s difficult qualifying session run in changing conditions, Pitt and Sofuoglu started from ninth and 11th place on the grid. After a superb start, Pitt slotted into second place at the first turn and was leading the race two corners later. However, whilst pushing to extend his lead, the Australian lost the front at Misano’s fast turn 10 sixth gear at 211kph (131mph). Sofuoglu, meanwhile, slotted into fifth place but saw his championship rivals, Crutchlow and Eugene Laverty making a break at the front. After passing Katsuaki Fujiwara for third place, the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda rider crashed exiting turn one. Sofuoglu did not return to his pit garage in time to make the restart, resulting in a double DNF for the Honda-mounted pair. Andrew Pitt DNF There is simply no point running around for fifth and sixth place finishes, which we’ve had for the last few races. I need to start winning again and that was all that was in my mind today. The problem is that we’ve been testing new suspension and had very little dry track time. Yesterday’s qualifying was difficult but my start was pretty good and I was just pushing for the win and we know what happened. It was fast enough and my neck and shoulder are a little sore but I’ll be OK again by next weekend. Kenan Sofuoglu DNF It’s been a bad weekend for us and our championship. We needed to test these new suspension components but there has just been too much rain this weekend. We had to guess at the dry set-up for the race but I knew quite early that it was not quite right. The rear was spinning way too much on the corner exit and I had some problems getting past Fujiwara. When I finally got through, I had to push hard to reach the others and I crashed. Ronald ten Kate team manager There is not really much to say. It’s been a disappointing day that we must put behind us. We really need to shape up for next weekend at Donington and for the remaining races this season.