Noriyuki Haga threw the 2009 World Superbike championship – already balanced on a knife edge – upside down when he crashed during the second race at the Nurburgring on Sunday.
Haga, riding a Ducati, grabbed the lead off the start, holding off Honda’s Carlos Checa and BMW rider Troy Corser in a confused first lap that saw arch-rival Ben Spies (Yamaha) down in seventh and Honda rookie Jonathan Rea moving up through the field to join the leading group. Motoring
Ben Spies: “It was a good race, I didn’t get a great start and I lost a little bit of time to get past Rea, while Nori got away a little bit and I really had to move to catch him. When I got Nori we passed and re-passed. It was tough because he was extremely fast in the first section. The bike started moving around quite a bit and then with three laps to go it was time to put the hammers down and go.”
Noriyuki Haga: “I’m not so happy, I wanted to win and I felt sure I could win that race. I tried to overtake Ben everywhere but in some parts he was quicker than me and in some parts my bike was quicker than his, but I couldn’t get past him, he was a little faster than me so I had to settle for second place. “
Carlos Checa: “Yesterday qualifying wasn’t so good but we knew we had a good pace and a good feeling with the bike. I didn’t feel so well this weekend either. My start wasn’t good, but we had the pace during the race. And starting from behind it was fun, a good fight until the end with Johnny. So it’s quite positive and I’m very happy.” WorldSBK
In his first crash the former Yamaha man collided with Briton Jonathan Rea in only his second lap of the day at 9.20am this morning. His second crash occurred just before lunch whilst lying tenth in the standings.
Haga was unclear exactly what caused the second crash, but the Japanese rider is thought to have lost the rear of the bike exiting a left hand corner causing him to high side. Motorcycle News
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