WSBK: Haga to Replace Bayliss?

Very strong rumours are claiming that the hottest seat in World Superbike, the Xerox Ducati ride, will go to Noriyuki Haga. Nobody had put the Japanese star on their silly season rumour lists as a replacement for Aussie legend Troy Bayliss, but it seems like Ducati Corse may have pulled off a major coup by stealing Haga from Yamaha.

For most of his racing career, Nori Haga has been a Yamaha man. The only major break between him and the Japanese factory was in 2003-4, when he raced in MotoGP for Aprilia, then in WSBK for a satellite Ducati squad. This makes it all the more surprising that Haga would leave Yamaha for the Ducati factory team.

However, there are some reasons why this move would not be such a major shock. Firstly, Haga has never won the WSBK title, despite coming close on various occasions. The nearest miss was when he was banned for taking the stimulant ephedrine, which was contained in a herbal diet supplement that he was taking. It was a controversial ban as most people did not believe that Haga obtained any performance advantage. Motorcycle racing ain't 100m sprinting, after all. Anyway, time is a-ticking for Haga to grab the title, and what better place than Ducati? The Italian team always seem to benefit from rule changes by the WSBK organisers (the Italian FG Sport company) that, by sheer coincidence, always give Ducati the rule changes that they had been demanding.

The main reason may be technical. Haga is notorious for refusing to use technical advances because he wants to have more feeling with the bike. After his disastrous year on the Aprilia RS3 Cube in MotoGP, during which he crashed 28 times, he said that he preferred an analogue bike, while the Aprilia was digital. (The RS3 Cube engine was basically 3 cylinders sawed off from an F1 engine, with masses of trick electronics that never stopped the bike throwing its hapless riders over the handlebars. It was generally considered to be all but unrideable.) As technical writer Neil Spalding said during a recent Eurosport TV broadcast, the Yamaha R1 is by far the most complicated bike in WSBK, and arguably more complicated than most MotoGP bikes.

Nori must hate this. The thought of riding a Ducati, which also has very trick MotoGP-derived traction control, but is probably a far simpler bike than the Yamaha overall, must be hugely tempting for him. Especially since Yamaha have been investigating yet another black box, active damping control, which would be yet another thing to think about rather than simply jumping on the bike and riding it fast. It could be that the Yamaha R1 is just too clever for its own good, and Haga has had enough.

If these rumours are true, it will be fascinating to see Haga back on a Ducati. He won several races the last time he raced on the Italian bikes in WSBK. Could this be his last chance to win the title?

WSBK: Bayliss and Kiyo Win At Soggy Donington

Troy Bayliss and Ryuichi Kiyonari took the victories in the European round of the World Superbike championship at Donington Park. The British wildcards also put in a strong showing in the changeable weather conditions.

Race 1
Although the weather was unpredictable from one minute to the next, it was surprisingly dry when the first race started. Former British Superbike champion Ryuichi Kiyonari took the lead on his Hannspree Ten Kate Honda. BSB regular Tom Sykes briefly took second place on his Rizla Suzuki, but was soon overtaken by Troy Bayliss on the Xerox Ducati, who was determined to finally score a victory on his last ever visit to the track. Bayliss took the lead when Kiyonari pushed too hard on the greasy track and lowsided out of the race at the Old Hairpin. Sykes was not prepared to watch the Australian disappear, and he passed Bayliss, then proceeded to pull out a lead of over three seconds.

Unfortunately, Santander Yamaha rider Noriyuki Haga was having one of his bad weekends. His engine blew up and started spewing smoke. Incredibly, the Japanese star did not pull over, but trundled round for most of the lap, even though he had clearly seen the blue smoke pouring from the bike. As he rounded Coppice corner, treacherous enough in the dry, some oil leaked out onto the track. It was invisible in the damp conditions, and riders started flying over handlebars like some kind of rodeo competition. Troy Corser highsided for approximately the sixth time of the weekend, and stumbled off in great pain. Makoto Tamada, who has been all but invisible on the Kawasaki this year, decided that he would like to feature in a few more crash videos. The ex-MotoGP race winner flew off his bike in a massive highside that saw the green machine flip expensively over and over. Carlos Checa joined in the fun with his second crash of the race (what can you say? The guy has class). Alstare Suzuki star Max Neukirchner dared to be different by falling off at another corner.

The race was red-flagged, and everybody who had fallen off was barred from re-starting. We would have an aggregate race! The times from the two halves of the race would be added together, meaning that the positions on track did not necessarily bear any relation to the positions in the official standings. Woo-hoo!


That was the taster. Read my whole review of the Donington Park round of the World Superbike championship at Motorbikesport to find out what happened in the second part of race 1, and in the wet race 2.

MotoGP: Is Sete Gibernau Out Of His Tree?

The return of Sete Gibernau to MotoGP is one of the strongest rumours in the current silly season, with claims that there will be a 5th Ducati run for him. Has Sete gone mad? Why would he want to leap back into the MotoGP cauldron?

For those of you with short memories, Sete Gibernau is one of the best riders never to win a world championship in the top GP class, up there with the likes of Biaggi and Mamola. For two years, 2003 and 2004, Sete was the only person to give Valentino Rossi a run for his money. In 2003, the pair were on essentially identical Honda bikes and Michelin tyres, with Rossi in the factory HRC team and Gibernau in the factory-supported Gresini garage. Sete had been a journeyman rider, with one 500cc win to his name, but when his young team mate Daijiro Kato was killed in the opening round at Suzuka, something changed inside Sete. With Kato's number 74 on his leathers as a tribute, he decided to win.

And he did win, and he kept winning; 4 races that year. He battled with Rossi all through the season, scoring 277 points, which is the highest losing score ever (Nicky Hayden won the title with just 252 points). It was an incredible change for Sete, who was nicknamed "Hollywood" due to his love of the limelight, and the fact that he was as temperamental and prone to histrionics as the average Hollywood star. Now he was a contender.

In 2004, Valentino Rossi switched to Yamaha for the seemingly impossible task of winning on the ill-handling and dog-slow Yamaha M1. It was Sete's big chance on the sweet handling, high-powered V5 Honda. The Catalan won another 4 races, but Rossi achieved the impossible and won the title. During the course of the year was the incident that would destroy Sete Gibernau's championship hopes. At Qatar, Rossi's mechanics sneaked onto the grid the night before the race and performed burnouts on his grid spot with a scooter to improve the grip. Rossi was demoted to the back of the grid, and crashed in the race while trying too hard to recover the deficit. Apoplectic with rage, and convinced that it was Gibernau's team who ratted him out, Valentino Rossi cast a gypsy curse on Gibernau, saying that he would never win another race.

Now, people argue as to whether Italian motorcycle racers have the ability to cast gypsy curses, even if they are multiple world champions, but sure enough, Gibernau never won another race.

In 2006, Sete switched to Ducati to ride their red-painted 990cc missile. It was a disaster. Sete had a mechanical failure while leading a race, and it all went downhill from there. At his home race of Barcelona, Gibernau clipped his team mate Loris Capirossi's bike with his brake lever. He looped the Ducati forwards, causing a terrifying pile up that caused nasty injuries to himself, Capirossi, and Marco Melandri. To top that, on the way out of the circuit his ambulance crashed into a bus. Later in the year Ducati announced that Sete was being dumped for the much cheaper Casey Stoner (an unexpectedly brilliant move, in hindsight). At the second-last race of the year, Stoner crashed, Sete hit his bike and mangled his collarbone for about the 439th time.

Sete cried enough. His collarbone was held together with duct tape and bailer twine, and none of the rides on offer were very tempting. He retired from MotoGP. A strange GP career, but an illustrious one. Nobody else was anywhere near Rossi during those two years. Nobody else was important enough to warrant a gypsy curse from The Doctor. Nobody else has scored 277 points and gone home empty handed.

So why on earth would he return to MotoGP? What is there to gain? Sure, he's probably still very quick, but he'll never win the title on a privateer Ducati. The only way is down for him. He doesn't need the money. He's rich, and comes from a rich family. Is it because he misses the glamour? Old Hollywood Gibernau just can't stand the anonymity? Or has he just gone stark raving mad? The stress, the pressure, the injuries. Maybe Sete has just gone out of his tree.

MotoGP: Post-Misano Musings

Now that the dust has settled from the San Marino round of the MotoGP championship at Misano, here are the main talking points that came up: Casey's constant crashing, and Pedrosa ditching les pneus français for most honorable number one Japanese tyres.

Stoner
The little Australian world champion was addicted to crashing in his younger days (hell, he still doesn't look a day over 12.) Like all addicts, Casey has suffered a relapse. That losing battle with Rossi at Laguna has rattled him severely. Stoner claimed Rossi's passing moves were too hard, worse than he's seen for years. He obviously hasn't watched any World Superbikes lately, where those kinds of forceful passes are so common that TV commentator James Whitham's usual cry when he sees a hard move, "Have some of that!" has almost become a catchphrase.

Casey fell off at Laguna during a huge battle with Rossi that made him lose his cool. His desperation to avoid another such battle has led him to fall off at the following two races. (Thanks to those of you who voted in the last poll, where 76% of you thought that Rossi had Stoner rattled. Good call, people.) Rossi has finally discovered the Stoner/Ducati weakness. They don't like it up 'em!

Pedrosa
The eency-weency, teeny-weeny, itty-bitty Spaniard has been even more sour-faced than usual lately. You thought that Rossi turned into a whinger when he fell out with Michelin? You ain't seen nothing! At least it's less of a surprise that Pedrosa would spit the dummy and chuck the toys out of the pram, considering that he could be mistaken for a 6 month old baby. Such is the strength of Pedrosa's hatred for Michelin (he didn't even want to be on frog-sourced rubber this year), and the strength of his personal mananger Alberto Puig's control over HRC, that the Repsol Honda team will run Dani on Bridgestone tyres, starting immediately.

Changing tyres mid-season? What the hell? This has obviously been on the cards for a little while. Some of the satellite Honda bikes have been on Bridgestones for a couple of years, so HRC have data about how to make a Honda work on Bridgestones. Just to check that this data was applicable to the factory Honda, HRC cunningly gave Bridgestone runner Shinya Nakano a full-fat Dani Pedrosa bike, complete with his favoured steel valve springs. Nakano has had a couple of good showings and set some fast laps. This proves that the Bridgestone setup data accumulated by the Honda Gresini team can be applied to the factory Repsol Honda.

Sure, it's a big risk to switch tyre companies mid-season, if you actually care about this year's championship result. But Dani and HRC don't really care. This year is lost, and they are using the last few races as the best kind of testing there is: racing. Add to that the fact that Honda know all about how Bridgestones work on Dani's bike, thanks to Shinya. This is definitely not the same as Rossi's switch to Bridgestones, which nobody had ever bolted to a Yamaha M1 before. Honda don't need a genius like Rossi's Aussie engineer Jeremy Burgess, they just need an HRC engineer who has worked in the Gresini garage. Simple.

The switch will be a major psychological boost for the po-faced Spaniard, and he's a damned quick rider and fast learner. How he will fare for the rest of the season is anybody's guess, but he could surprise us all.