Now the Yamaha Italia crew - who are based in the same building as the Fiat Yamaha
MotoGP team - have smoothed out the power flow, and Haga is also on a roll, scoring two wins and four other podiums in his last six races.
Meanwhile, it became apparent at
Silverstone that the Honda HRC traction control system on Toseland’s Fireblade is not as sophisticated as the kit on some rival bikes.
"What we have is really an anti-spin system," said his manager Roger Burnett. "It’s not full traction control. It stops the rear wheel from spinning initially, but if you then load up the throttle it will spin. When he crashed here he was just slightly too much on the power, and the anti-spin was not good enough."
So it’s back to the garage for those savvy Ten Kate engineers. Toseland’s had a frustrating time recently, retiring with a gear-change problem at
Donington, and suffering Sunday’s crash. But he performed heroically to pick the bike and restart with a loose throttle handlebar and water spewing from a broken pipe. He could see that a split in the handlebar bracket was gradually opening up as the race continued, while the sweating engine was losing power, but he still made it to eighth place and eight precious championship points. Now that really is bringing the ship home.
With six rounds and 12 races remaining, the championship looks like it’s coming down to a three-way fight between Toseland, Haga and Bayliss. Max Biaggi is holding in there in third place in the points table on his Alstare Corona Suzuki, but you can’t help feeling that he is unlikely to win the championship in his first season in the series.
Why Britain Flops in the World.
British motorcycle racing keeps wailing that it doesn’t have enough riders on the world scene - but then does very little to correct the situation. Of the 106 riders who contested the three Supersport and Superstock support races at Silverstone - fame academies for the tomorrow’s stars - only six were British. We had only two riders -
James Toseland and Dean Ellison - in the Superbike division. It’s pathetic.
