Superbike World Championship preview – round four: Italy Track length: 5792m Year opened: 1922 Superbike lap record: 1:47.434 (Troy Bayliss, 2002) Last year’s winners: Regis Laconi (Ducati) The Superbike and Supersport World Championships make the first of their three appearances in Italy this season, as the series moves to the historic and high-speed Monza circuit on the outskirts of Milan. While the points on offer may be the same as at every other round, the Monza event has an extra significance for the Yamaha Motor Italia team – the circuit is based just a short walk from the company headquarters and huge numbers of employees and their families will visit the circuit to cheer on riders Noriyuki Haga and Andrew Pitt. Monza is always one of the highlights of the year. Not only is the circuit located within a beautiful Royal park, the circuit itself is a mecca of motorsport and simply drenched in history. Fans can expect close race racing as the riders jockey for position down the three long straights, cheered on by a large and passionate Italian crowd. “Monza is very important for us,” commented team coordinator Massimo Meregalli. “The headquarters of Yamaha Motor Italia is at Germo de Lesmo, which is just a few kilometers from Monza and we will have many, many guests here this weekend. Our results are now improving every race and Valencia was Noriyuki’s best result of the year. We have already had a test at Monza and this went very well. Both riders made steps forward in terms of set-up, especially Noriyuki who has so far been finding it quite hard to get the R1 how he likes it.” The Yamaha riders go into the Monza race on the back of opposing fortunes during the last round in Valencia. Haga had his best outing of the year, taking a fourth and fifth place finish to move up to seventh in the championship Pitt slipped back to eighth after a tough day that saw him crash out of the opening race and finish eighth in race two after a small technical glitch stopped him battling for fourth spot. Meanwhile the Yamaha Motor France squad’s Norick Abe remains the leading R1 rider in the championship, just four points ahead of Haga in fifth place, despite crashing out of a certain podium finish in Spain. Team-mate Sebastien Gimbert will make his Monza debut at the weekend and, although the Frenchman has yet to find his consistency, the reigning world endurance champ is impressing with his outright speed during this his debut superbike campaign. Suzuki’s Troy Corser will be the man to beat in Monza. The Australian has won five out of the six races held so far this year to build a commanding lead in the championship. Monza – the circuit The Monza circuit can be summed up in one word – fast! Last year the average speed around the Italian circuit was over 190kph – over the entire race distance – 18kph faster than the next speediest circuit on the calendar, Assen. Yamaha Motor Italia riders Haga and Pitt spent two days testing at Monza last week, working mainly on chassis settings, and as a result the team’s YZF-R1s will appear in Italy sporting a new swinging arm. During testing last week the team found the swinging arm available as a YEC kit part to be the best. YEC is the company responsible for Yamaha’s customer kit parts for R-series races. The team will also produce special ‘Monza-spec’ engines for the event with additional high-rpm power at the expense of a little low-down performance. These engines will have revised cam timing compared to those used in the opening rounds, while exhaust supplier Termignoni will provide a different exhaust system to complement the new engine tune. With top speeds regularly approaching 300kph at Monza, aerodynamics can be even more important that sheer horsepower when it comes to getting the most out of the machine. With this in mind, the team will also be able to change the windscreens to allow them tuck down behind the bubble and squeeze every last kph out of their machines in what is likely to be a slipstreaming battle. With four long straights, riders will be slipstreaming each other along and constantly swapping positions down the long straights, as the lack of air resistance allows them to reach higher speeds than they would unassisted. Making a bad start and failing to join the train of leading riders will make it difficult to gain the ground required to challenge for a leading position, although this effect also makes it hard for one rider to break away from the pack. As such races at Monza are usually close, exciting and difficult to predict. Supersport World Championship While the superbikes will no doubt be grabbing the headlines due to their enormous top speeds at Monza, don’t forget about the supersport class. The 600s should provide typically close racing down the long Monza straights and Yamaha Motor Germany’s Kevin Curtain is the leading YZF-R6 runner in the championship, third overall after three rounds and benefiting from the ongoing development to the 2005 machine. With two podium finishes in a row, the experienced Australian is looking like the most likely challenger to the Honda team-mates Sebastien Charpentier and Katsuaki Fujiwara who, between them have won all three races. FIM Superstock 1000 Cup Also supporting Sunday’s action will be the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup. Just like last year’s championship, round one in Valencia proved to be a Yamaha whitewash, with R1s taking the top four places. Yamaha Motor Germany’s Kenan Sofuoglu and Didier van Keymeulen, first and second place finishers in Spain, should once again be at the sharp end in Monza but look out too for Italian rider Massimo Roccoli. The youngster finished third in Valencia and should prove even more competitive on a circuit he knows well.