The first race of the 12th round World Superbike championship event at Laguna Seca in the USA today proved to be a difficult one for the riders in general with two red flags leading to a final 12-lap sprint.

The race was won by series leader Tom Sykes with Pata Honda rider Michel Fabrizio unable to finish higher than 13th. The Italian rider cited front grip problems on his CBR machine and hopes for improvement in tomorrow’s (Sunday) second outing.

His team-mate Leon Haslam had an even more frustrating day after an improvement in his set-up allowed him to set his fastest lap of the weekend in Superpole 1 this morning. However, technical issues prevented the 30-year-old from completing a lap in Superpole 2 and he was forced to start from 12th place on the grid.

Further sensor issues manifested themselves in the first part of the race but, with a new front tyre for the second part, Haslam, too suffered from front grip problems and crashed out on lap six. He injured the left leg that he broke at Assen in the Netherlands earlier this season but expects to be able to take part in race two tomorrow.

Michel Fabrizio – 13th

It’s been a very strange day because this morning in free practice and in Superpole I was happy and I had a good feeling with the bike. My starting position was not good but I was looking forward to the race. I don’t know what happened because we didn’t change anything for the race. The track temperature was maybe a little higher but I had very big problems with grip at the front. We are looking through the data now to see if we can find the problem, but I hope it will be better tomorrow.

Leon Haslam – DNF

I think my time in Superpole 1, on a race tyre, would’ve set me the fastest lap of the race, and a 20-lap run in free practice was good, too. So we’ve made some good progress to achieve pace but the race was a disaster again. We had a traction control problem in the first part, which was a bit strange, but in part two I had zero grip from the front from lap one. I was losing the front three or four times a lap and eventually it put me down. Roger Lee Hayden went down straight after me and thought there was oil on the track but I had an issue in that area anyway. Again, it’s one of those things: no issue with the front all weekend and then a massive issue in the race. The leg is a little sore with ligament and muscle pain but I’ll ice it up tonight and we’ll be all right tomorrow.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

It was quite a hectic day and we had two red flags in the first race of the weekend. Leon had a technical issue in Superpole and we are really sorry that he was not able to improve his position. We had some other small issues in the race but the red flag allowed us to solve them. He then crashed because of a lack of front grip which was really strange and we’re looking at settings and tyres now just to see what happened. Michel also had a difficult day and after the first red flag we opted for a different front tyre to look for more grip but in the second half it dropped really fast and left him with no grip and a bike that was difficult to turn. We’ll have to see if we can come up with a better setting for tomorrow and try again.

2012 World Superbike championship, round 12

Laguna Seca, USA – 3.610km

Race 1 result (12 laps):

1 Tom Sykes (GBR) Kawasaki
2 Chaz Davies (GBR) BMW
3 Eugene Laverty (IRL) Aprilia
4 Marco Melandri (ITA) BMW
5 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Aprilia
6 Davide Giugliano (ITA) Aprilia
13 Michel Fabrizio (ITA) Pata Honda
DNF Leon Haslam (GBR) Pata Honda

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