But while Lanzi will be dreaming of a podium, one man who has had five of them in the last five races is Yamaha Motor Italia’s
Noriyuki Haga. With Laconi’s absence, two further good rides will take him to third place overall, even before the final two races at Imola and Magny Cours in early October.
Haga’s countryman
Yukio Kagayama continued his recent up and down form at the previous Assen event, but at Eurospeedway Lausitz, he will be all out to take his first podium since race one at Monza, some 12 races ago.
Of all the current privately entered riders in the championship with the greatest expectation of a good result, few can be as keen to take a podium finish this weekend as local hero Max Neukirchner. Already a podium finisher in his rookie season, the Klaffi Honda rider has prior knowledge of Lausitz and that may be a great help in front of his German fans.
His vastly experienced team-mate Pierfrancesco Chili is still searching for that elusive machine set-up that will allow him to score a podium finish, while Renegade honda’s Ben Bostrom hopes to be at near full fitness for the Eurospeedway Lausitz race, after injury and illness conspired to make Assen an agonising memory, despite his good points score in race two.
A GP star of years past, Ralf Waldmann, makes a popular wild card entrant on his Alpha Technik Honda van Zon CBR1000RR.
No matter which of the current SBK riders take the wins at Eurospeedway Lausitz, it will be their first successes there, as none has taken a previous race win at this circuit.
Meanwhile, after a superb qualifying and Superpole for Steve Martin at Assen, and two good rides from both himself and his team-mate Garry McCoy, Eurospeedway Lausitz will hold little fear for the FP-1 riders, despite its succession of power-sapping low gear corner exits.
In the World Supersport Championship, Winston Ten Kate Honda’s Sebastien Charpentier has already been crowned, but behind him the battle for the runner-up, and the top five places, are more closely contested than ever.
