Troy Bayliss admits he was trying perhaps a little too hard in the latest round of the World Superbike Championship after finishing second and fourth at the Nurburgring.
The championship leader had led both races at one stage, but a couple of ‘small mistakes' prevented him from completing a victory in either.
Bayliss came closest in the first race after a lengthy dual with Noriyuki Haga that came to an end when he overtook him with three laps to go before promptly running wide at turn one and losing too much time to come back at him.
It was a similar story in race two when he out-braked himself at the same corner whilst leading and slipped as low as sixth place at one point. However, a fight back saw him overtake
Carlos Checa for fourth in the latter stages, helping him save some face on what he described as a ‘difficult day'
Nonetheless, Bayliss was full of praise for double winner
Noriyuki Haga, adding that he thinks the Yamaha rider deserved to win the first race, regardless of his error.
"I've had a difficult day and have had to ride very hard, too hard in Race 2. After seeing Nori's consistency in this morning's warm-up I thought he was going to be the man to beat today and that proved to be the case.
“After about two-thirds of Race 1 I was doing everything I could to stay with him and although at one point I thought I might be able to take the win, in the end Nori won fair and square. My congratulations go to him, he rode a great race, bearing in mind he broke his collarbone just two weeks ago!
”We made a small change to the bike set-up for Race 2 but this didn't help and riding over the limit meant I made a couple of small mistakes.”
Despite the less than ideal day, Bayliss does actually come away from Germany with an extended championship lead of 39 points after finishing ahead of Carlos Checa in both races.
