World SBK: Tamada back and injured again at Brno

World Superbike Press Release

After a long layoff to recover from finger injuries sustained at Monza Kawasaki World Superbike Team rider Makoto Tamada came back at a high pace at Brno last weekend.

Linked up with his fellow regular team-mate Broc Parkes Makoto started from the third row of the grid, after some good experiences in qualifying. Despite making a less than perfect start he had been running as high as seventh in race 1, before slipping back to tenth place.

Race 2 was less happy for Tamada, who fell after a collision with Lorenzo Lanzi, and sustained a broken left middle finger, which was a repeat of his Monza injury. With his team racing in the BSB championship soon he is battling to be fit for that opportunity to get more track time in, but should be clear to race at the Nürburgring in September.

Tamada, a three time WSB race winner in his early career, said: "I felt a lot more confident on the Ninja ZX-10R this weekend as the machine was working really well, We made some big improvements with suspension and the swinging arm and we had good engine power. I was running in the top ten for the majority of the sessions and was very happy to qualify on the third row and make it into Superpole. In race one I didn't have such a great start but I was able to move up and battle for seventh before I ran out of rear grip and had to finish in tenth. Race two was a major disappointment as I was hit by another rider on lap three and broke my middle finger again from the previous injury and wasn't able to finish the race."

Paul Risbridger, Tamada's team-manager was enthused by the practice and race one performance of his returning rider, and also stated it was not just the rider which has made recent improvements. "We started the weekend from Friday onwards fairly strongly on the ZX-10R," stated Risbridger. "We had some new chassis parts and suspension set-up to try which both riders said was working well. This was proved in Free Practice and Qualifying sessions over the weekend. It was encouraging to see Makoto's performance, which was the strongest of the season so far; when in race one he was a genuine top ten contender. Unfortunately the race results were affected by a number of crashes and this prevented us achieving the top ten finishes we felt the bike was capable of this weekend."