Valencia: Team YZF Yamaha weekend summary

PROGRESS FOR NAKATOMI

Shinichi Nakatomi finished 11th in the first race, only 19 seconds behind the winner Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati). In race 2, he ended up 16th, 25 seconds behind Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha) who won the event. The time difference with the leaders is now smaller than it was at the beginning of the season and this is good progress for Nakatomi.

Max Neukirchner (Suzuki) led the first race for most of the distance and was caught by the end of the event by Carlos Checa (Honda). Unfortunately, the Spanish rider collided with the German. Neukirchner had a broken collarbone in the accident. Lorenzo Lanzi used this opportunity to win the race in front of the World Championship leader Troy Bayliss (Ducati) and Troy Corser (Yamaha). Shinichi Nakatomi did a good race, finishing 11th 2 seconds behind Tamada (Kawasaki) and only 1 behind Rolfo (Honda).

In the second race, Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha) did a superb race and was the winner in front of Troy Bayliss. Nakatomi was 16th just behind Kenan Sofuoglu (Honda). This time again, he was not very far from the top riders.

Team-manager Martial Garcia: "The first race was good and the gap is small. It is a good result, a nice performance. The second race was also good and I am happy about this weekend. We are getting closer to the top riders and it is positive. We are closer to the leaders than we ever were before."

-credit: yzf