Ducati Superbike
Noriyuki Haga returned to his winning ways in Germany with a stunning victory in Race 2 at the Nurburgring World Superbike event.
The last time the Ducati Xerox SBK rider stood on the top slot of the podium was at Valencia back in April, and his other two major results this year have been two thirds at Phillip Island and Miller Motorsports Park.
On lap 7 of race 1 Nori unexpectedly lost the front of his motorcycle and crashed. Unhurt, he hoped to be able to return to the track and returned to the box to fix a damaged handlebar but unfortunately damaged mufflers meant that it was too dangerous to continue and the team decided to retire.
In race 2 he soon got past Carlos Checa to take the lead and, after Checa’s unlucky crash a few laps later, was able to gradually increase the gap between himself and Jonathan Rea, eventually crossing the line with more than three seconds of advantage to take the 43rd Superbike win of his career.
With this win, Noriyuki celebrates the 110th podium of his career, moving ahead of Carl Fogarty (109) in the all time standings, and is now sixth in the championship with 202 points.
Noriyuki Haga says: “First of all I want to say how happy I am to be back up here. After the Race 1 crash I went straight back to the garage in the hope that my technicians could adjust the bike so that I could continue but unfortunately there was too much damage to the mufflers and I had to stop there.”
“We made some modifications to the front suspension and the bike behaved a lot better in Race 2. I maintained a strong pace for the entire race and was able to get the job done! I’m sorry for Carlos because it’s always great to battle against him. Now I’d like to repeat this great result at Imola, Ducati’s home track.”
