Alstare Suzuki's Yukio Kagayama finished the first race a strong second to his team-mate at the Monza round of the Corona Extra World Superbike championship.
The second race did not go quite to plan and ended on lap ten, in the gravel. In his exclusive Crash.net column Yuki-san tells us what happened...
Hello Yuki-fans, I hope you all enjoyed the close fast racing at Monza as much as me. I love fast circuits with hard braking so Monza make me much happy and good battles in race one but not happy with second race crash. It was second time over weekend I fall over in the gravel so may be I have extra wheels to help with slow riding as I only know how to ride maximum gas!
In free practice we continued set-up we had from our test here the week before, we try some new tyres and find a good setting for my Alstare Suzuki. Unfortunately in first practice I have small crash. I was behind slower rider and he suddenly slowed. I was going to hit but at last minute I did not, but run into the gravel and gas, gas, gas but I fell. It was very slow speed and not much damage to bike so was okay to carry on with the day.
In the first qualifying I managed to the second fastest time but I knew it was not enough and wanted more!
Saturday was my birthday and wanted good results to celebrate. I am now 31, so Yuki-san is an old man!
In second qualifying I have hard time, we try tyre testing but one race tyre only last six laps before it went off so we were a little worried for the race. Right at the end of the session I used a qualifying tyre, and put in third fastest lap, this was okay, as I knew I still had more to come and was looking forward to Superpole. In second practice I showed everyone what I wanted to do – lead the field! I set the fastest time and was very happy going into Superpole.
I had maximum concentration for one lap qualifier, I do not think I would have noticed if world had ended! When I saw I had pole it was perfect birthday present!
