Sunday, August 1st, 2004

Contrary to popular belief, there are some days when the weather in England is glorious. Sometimes this may last for several days at a time. Of course, this results ina drought as we are never prepared for it, but one of the nicer side effects is that it makes for very pleasant motorcycling.

And such it was this weekend, as the sun beamed down from an almost cloudless sky. Brands Hatch crowds were robbed of the traditional Saturday night downpour and the goodly sized crowd were treated to racing that certainly lived up to climatic expectations.

Qualifying ran much as one would normally expect. With, of course, a few small exceptions. Garry McCoy, for example, was a notable absentee from Superpole after a grim qualifying session saw him languishing in 17th place. Ditto Ivan Clementi, struggling for grip and everything else on the powerful but wayward Kawasaki. But Superpole was blessed with the presence of Giovanni Bussei (who?), Piergeorgio Bontempi (what?) and Gianluca Nanelli (huh?) who scorched through qualifying to end up fourth before Superpole on his Pedercini Ducati. And last entry at 16th? None other than British Superbike refugee and private entry James Ellison on a pretty nearly stock Yamaha R1. And Superpole itself threw up a few little surprises as well. James Toseland, blisteringly fast for the first part of the lap, made a mistake at the scarily fast Mike Hawthorn bend, narrowly avoiding a brief flight into the woods but totally wrecking his lap. 12th place on the grid a poor reward for a top effort. Chris Walker had a pretty ropey time of it as well, ending up 13th ahead of Bussei, Sanchini and Bontempi, while Mr Superpole Troy Corser himself struggled in vain to better fifth. At the front of the grid a battle was shaping up between Haga, Laconi and Chili with Vermeulen waiting in the wings. Earlier the young Aussie confided that Brands was his worst circuit. "I had my worst ever result here last year (ed: in Supersports)," he said. "I finished sixth." But perhaps the biggest surprise came out of nowhere as a seemingly out of form Steve Martin and the Sterilgarda Ducati team pulled it all together to record a scorching 1'27.213" to take Superpole by just over 0.2 seconds from Laconi. Leon Haslam, in the meantime, was fighting the effects of the injured wrist he picked up at Laguna Seca and as a result remained in tenth place.

Race day dawned dry, warm and bright. All eyes were on a pretty strong British contingent. Despite injuries and scary moments, morale was high and hopes were there with them. And as things panned out it was certainly an incident and excitement packed day.

Race One

When the lights changed James Toseland went off like the proverbial rat up a drainpipe, making up five places by the time the pack reached Druids for the first time, getting himself up to seventh. A big push from him saw him climb briefly higher up before his tyres went off and he fell back into the clutches of a ferociously fast James Ellison on the Jentin Yamaha. And despite all his best efforts, lack of grip meant that he stayed there, just a tenth of a second back, for the rest of the race. At the front a huge four way fight was going on between Haga, Laconi, Chili and Martin, with Vermeulen hovering to pick up the pieces when it all went wrong, though over two seconds behind the action. A huge crash for Frankie Chili at Surtees saw his efforts go to naught. Fortunately the Italian hero picked up nothing more serious than some heavy bruising. The same could be said for his one-off teammate De Matteis, who exited very gracefully at Graham Hill Bend, sliding to an unharmed stop on the grass after losing the front under braking. But with Frankie's exit from proceedings it became a straight two way fight to decide the top podium step. And after several laps of lead swapping, Haga made an audacious move on the last lap and, crucially, made it stick to take his first win since Silverstone. Further back, an intense battle between the Suzukis of Nowland and Fuertes lasted until Fuertes' bike broke on the last lap, despite a few moments of real flirting with disaster when it looked extremely unlikely that either of them would finish as they went at it flat out. Garry McCoy went off at Druids, briefly remounting but retiring by the next corner. Leon Haslam, fighting the pain, made a sterling effort and would have probably caught Toseland and Ellison had he not have overcooked things and ended up giving himself another pasting just two laps from the end. Good efforts all round, then, and with track temperature rising and the fine weather set in for the day, as well as a few people having something to prove, the stage was set for an excellent race two.

Supersports

But before the second SBK race we had the Supersports championship race. Now I confess that I had never really paid that much attention to the 600s before. What a mistake. 23 laps and one restart saw a gap of just 11 seconds from first to last place, with the winner's lap times similar to the lower end of the Superbike field. Supersport is close, frantic and very fast. Standing inside Druids, it was amazing to see how much faster they seemed to be round the tight corner than the Superbikes. Certainly they were far harder to photograph...

An unpleasant crash 9 laps in saw leader Fabien Foret spat off his Yamaha and then run over by two riders behind him, who simply had nowhere else to go. Foret was airlifted to hospital where his injuries transpired to be rather less severe than was at first feared. The restarted race was won by championship leader Karl Muggeridge on his Ten Kate Honda in style from Charpentier and Van Der Goorburgh, with team-mate Broc Parkes just five thousandths of a second further back.

Local riders Luke Quigley and Tom Tunstall were twelfth and thirteenth respectively - a fine performance on their British Championship spec machines - while Dean Ellison failed to finish on the IRT Honda.

 

Superbike Race Two

Another quick start by Toseland again saw him make up a few places. But on lap 3 it all went wrong as the oil cooler let go on his bike, dumping most of the contents of the sump onto the track and Toseland's rear tyre. A few major moments were rapidly followed by the realisation that something was seriously wrong and an early bath was in order. Except that, at the other end of the track, De Matteis was visiting another part of the Brands Hatch gravel, but this time with rather more speed and energy. Medical vehicles on and by the track meant that the race had to be stopped while the unfortunate Italian was stabilised and taken to the medical centre, rounding off a splendid weekend for him. Happily, again his injuries transpired to be less serious than was at first suspected.

But the Italian's misfortune meant that Toseland was able to rejoin the restarted race on his spare machine, and to start in the position he had reached before the race was stopped as well. Big hopes for the British rider and the feeling of optimism was palpable in the crowd. Were we going to get a Brit back on the podium? And was Toseland going to be able to close the gap in the championship opened by Laconi after race one? Another storming start saw the young Brit make great progress off the line and get the drop on Corser at Druids. Unfortunately for everyone, the concertina effect as everyone braked and a few over-enthusiastic moves further down the field meant that there was contact at the front and the result was a solid collision between Corser and Toseland, leaving them both in the gravel uninjured but completely out of the race before it had even really started. The wave of depression that swept over the crowd was lifted slightly when Haga took the lead of a three way battle between himself, Laconi and Chili and lifted even further when Laconi crashed out, again uninjured, at Graham Hill Bend. Then titanic fight between Chili and Haga kicked off properly, with the two of them separated by no more than a bike length and the lead swapping regularly up until the last lap when Chili pulled the bravest round the outside overtake I have ever seen to take and hold the lead for a thoroughly deserved and hard earned win. With both riders being adopted Brits, the partisan crowd went crazy. Chris Vermeulen rode a lonely race to take a solid third, his best ever result at Brands and the end of a fine day's work for the Ten Kate team. Chris Walker added further to national pride with a very welcome fourth position, just ahead of wildcard and semi-privateer entry James Ellison. The Sterilgarda Ducati team had a thin time of it, both riders experiencing mechanical failures, while Gianluca Nannelli was obviously overcome by the excitement of his qualifying so well as he jumped the start, being pulled in for a ride through penalty a few laps later. Warwick Nowland was similarly afflicted but declined to pull in and was rewarded with a black flag and a rather one sided conversation with the clerk of the course. Leon Haslam was unable to start the second leg, presumably for mechanical reasons.

Then the final twist. Despite winning the second leg by a quarter of a second, once the times of the two legs were added together Frankie Chili was in second place behind Haga who magnanimously said "I want the points but to me Chili is the winner."

The championship has rather changed shape now, though, with the disappointing weekend dropping erstwhile leader James Toseland to fourth place behind new leader Laconi , Vermeulen and Haga. Mind you, those four are separated by just eight points altogether with 150 points left to be won. Frankie Chili is still in with a shout as well, though he needs to win everything from here on to do it. It's also worth remembering that had Vermeulen not been disqualified on a technicality in Italy then he would now be leading the series. Not bad for a new kid on a new bike.

Haga now joins the few to have done the double this season. In fact, he and Vermeulen are the only riders to have managed this so far. And in doing so he has secured the manufacturer's title for Ducati for the 14th time in 16 years of the championship.

Race One Result