Haga flies at Nurburgring

Just two weeks after breaking his collarbone, Japan's Noriyuki Haga has scored a fantastic double win in round seven of the Superbike World Championship at Nurburgring in Germany.

The Yamaha-backed veteran was in sparkling form as the title hit the halfway mark, snaring the honours in two intense battles - against Troy Bayliss (Ducati) in race one before pipping his Aussie teammate Troy Corser in the second rain-shortened 14-lapper.

Haga is now the fifth rider in world Superbike history to score 30 or more wins, joining Carl Fogarty, Bayliss, Corser and American Colin Edwards.

"During the event the collarbone was no problem, just some muscle pain," said Haga. I had a great fight with my teammate (Corser) in race two: it was very exciting, fun and fair and I really enjoyed it.

"I want to thank (American surgeon) Dr Ting for the operation on my collarbone. I'm so happy for the win, and it's fantastic to go forward to Misano having closed the championship gap a bit."

Haga's clean sweep saw him move to fourth in the standings on 172pts, behind Bayliss (227pts), Carlos Checa (188pts) and German Max Neukirchner (Suzuki, 176pts).

After the disappointment of a double DNF in America, Bayliss was back to accumulating big points at Nurburgring, although his second and fourth places didn't come without a struggle.

"I've had a difficult day and have had to ride very hard, even too hard in race two," said Bayliss. "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 one 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, and bearing in mind he broke his collarbone just two weeks ago!"

"We made a small change to the bike set-up for race two, but this didn't help and riding over the limit meant I made a couple of small mistakes. I'm lucky to come away with more of a points lead over Carlos but at the same time I've given away points to Nori and Max (Neukirchner).

"We will test this week in Mugello and so we plan to work more on the settings in order to be able to finish off the corners better, because that's where I'm struggling a bit at the moment."

Bayliss actually moved into the lead in the concluding stages of race one before Haga pressured him into a small mistake.

The Australian only fell back to second though, and he crossed the finish line just ahead of polesitter, Neukirchner, with Corser and the fast-finishing Checa rounding out the top five.

Race two was shortened to 14 laps after light rain swept across the circuit (following on from a hailstorm prior to race one), with Bayliss passing Checa on the last lap to finish fourth, while Haga scored the honours from Corser and Neukirchner.

Corser was actually in front of Haga when the red flag was brought out, but final results were then taken at the completion of the preceding lap.

"I put my hand out to get Nori's attention and it's possible that the race direction might have seen that and thought that we wanted the race stopped," said Corser. "Soon after, Nori put his hand up anyway, I think, and that was it.

"Before that, I'd been having a great fight with him, but I felt that I could stay ahead of him and that this could be my day. Of course, you never know what Nori is going to do, but I really felt that I could win the race.

"Although I wanted to win the race I just wanted to stay on the bike as well. I had an amazing race with Nori, fantastic riding. We're getting the bike better and better, hopefully we can get some more great results before the end of the year."

Like Haga, Corser also jumped a championship spot at Nurburgring - up from sixth to fifth.

Karl Muggeridge (Honda) finished with 10-12 results, while his teammate and fellow Australian Russell Holland was 19th in both outings.

In world Supersport, it was an Aussie binge with Andrew Pitt the winner from fellow Honda rider Josh Brookes and Yamaha's Broc Parkes.

The troika dominated proceedings from the outset, with Parkes leading most of the 19-lap journey before Pitt and Brookes slipped past in the final few laps.

"The pace we had today was amazing, I was quicker then I was in qualifying for pretty much half the race," said Pitt. "I was doing everything I could to catch up with Broc, but couldn't make an impression on him. When he started to look down at the end I thought he might have some problems and took my chance to pass him and stayed in front."

"I didn't have much tire left in the end, but managed to bring the bike back home fine. My mechanics gave me a good package to work with this weekend. We got the job done and are back in the front of the championship where we should be."

The victory was Pitt's third this year and propelled him into the championship lead, ahead of a logjam: Fabien Foret (Yamaha, 84pts), Brookes (83pts), Joan Lascorz (Honda, 81) and Parkes (81).

Mark Aitchison (Triumph) crashed and eventually returned to the pits, while Jeremy Crowe was 15th in his world Supersport debut, deputising for an injured rider in the Yamaha Spain equip.

Garry McCoy (Triumph) sat out Nurburgring after supply problems with one of his team's technical partners.

20 finishers, 7 DNFs
Fastest lap and founding record (altered circuit): Bayliss - 1:57.276

24 finishers, 3 DNFs
Fastest lap and new lap record: Haga - 1:56.892

2008 WORLD SUPERBIKE STANDINGS (after 7 of 14 rounds):

Next round: Misano, San Marino: June 29