The midfield fascination this season has included the battle between the second factory Ducati of
Lorenzo Lanzi and Valencia race winner,
Ruben Xaus on his Sterilgarda GMB Ducati. Lanzi's sixth place is under threat from the shadowing Xaus, only some ten points back. Roby Rolfo on the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda has had flirtations with the podium this season, but scoring one at Brands would not only be his best SBK result ever, it would be a just reward for missing out on early top threes through simple bad luck. Max Neukirchner riding for Suzuki Germany is looking to make up the 20 points he needs to catch Rolfo. Behind them all, the real threat is the rejuvenated Kagayama, who seems to be growing in stature every week.
Before the last round at Brno both
Michel Fabrizio on the DFX Corse Honda and
Regis Laconi riding for PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse felt they have not had particularly clear runs at the podium places in 2007, but Fabrizio finally joined the podium throng this year with third place in race two in the Czech Republic. Laconi and
Fonsi Nieto also on the PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse have been unable to turn the speed of their Kawasaki engines into a significant reward in terms of overall points, with Laconi 12th and Nieto 13th.
The fight for the places in the overall top 15 is as closely contested and vicious as ever, with any mistake punished particularly harshly, due to the relatively low points totals enjoyed by the private entries. Jakub Smrz riding the Caracchi Ducati SC 999 heads the main privateer pack, but this weekend a new player re-enters the fray, Steve Martin now riding for Yamaha YZF. The highly experienced Australian will have yet another new experience this weekend, as half his team will be regulars in the Yamaha YZF team camp, but the others will be from the British Championship Yamaha squad. Thus each machine will have different set-ups and equipment packages.
