"I like Monza, there are many Yamaha supporters at Monza and it is our team's home race. The track itself is different from all the others on the calendar. We need to have the bike set-up for hard braking after the long and fast straights and there will be a lot of slipstreaming involved. Overtaking options are limited around there, mainly on braking. It was really wet for our recent test there but we did do some traction control testing," he added.
Indeed, the two-day Monza test virtually washed out by torrential rain, and thus Monza will be something of a clean sheet for everyone.
"As we do for all the others tracks, we will prepare one bike using our 2007 race specifications and the other will be pretty close to what we ran in the previous race," said Haga's crew chief Silvano Galbusera. "So, one bike will be the Assen race bike, with harder suspension, and one will be set the same as last year's Monza machine. Unfortunately, we had no real feedback from the Monza test we had last month because of the weather. The geometry, rake, trail and other chassis settings will start out the same as last year. It's easy for us to start from the 2007 spec, because it seemed to work well for Nori last year.
"The main differences we have compared to 2007 are special engine parts, for top end power, some more options we have are rear suspension linkages and one alternative swingarm, which has different rigidity," he revealed. "Of course, at Monza the engine is very important, because the rider has to hold full throttle for a long time. A powerful engine is something you must have if you want to fight for the podium. During the Monza race weekend we'll test some new engine parts that should help the riders to go faster than last year.
