World Championship leader Troy Bayliss is back in Monza after a 3 years absence, but comes back as a winner. In his last 4 starts he racked up 4 wins (in 2001 and 2002) that out of 6 total starts make him one of the riders with the best performances on the italian track. Bayliss is the most successful winner of all times in Monza together with Fogarty, Pirovano and Chili.
Only one win and 5 retirements out of 18 starts for Troy Corser in a circuit he like much. It’s one of the few tracks in which Corser hasn’t scored a pole position and for a rider that obtained 35 poles in 16 different tracks, that looks a bit strange.
It’s worth remembering that in 2005 in Monza Corser ended a 5 wins streak started in Phillip Island race 1 when he finished third in race 2, and he wasn’t able to find his way to the top step of the podium until Brno race 1, 5 races later.



LESS THAN A SECOND – It’s the gap race recorded at the end of 17 (out of 28) races run in Monza, a fotofinish track.
The 5 thousandths of a second in race 1, 1997, and in race 2, 1999, are the minimum gap ever recorded in the whole history of the World Championship.
These are the 10 closest finishes.
Year Race Winner Second Gap
1999 2 Fogarty Edwards 0'00"005
1997 1 Kocinski Slight 0'00"005
1996 2 Chili Slight 0'00"007
2000 1 Chili Edwards 0'00"028
2000 2 Edwards Chili 0'00"031
2003 2 Hodgson Lavilla 0'00"044
1993 1 Slight Russell 0'00"045
2001 1 Bayliss Edwards 0'00"066
1990 2 Pirovano Monti 0'00"070
1998 1 Edwards Slight 0'00"083
The 2 races in 2005 ended respectively with a gap of 0”985 in race 1 (Corser in front of Kagayama) and 0”582 in race 2 (Vermeulen on Laconi)

2005 SUPERPOLE™ - In 2005 Yukio Kagayama with the Suzuki obtained the pole spot with only 0”007 over team-mate Corser, the third gap in qualifying in the history of the World Championship behind the 0”002 that separated Akira Yanagawa by Wataru Yoshikawa in Sugo 1997 and the 0”005 that have been recorded in two races: Estoril 1993 (Aaron Slight - Carl Fogarty) and in Laguna Seca 1999 (Corser - Anthony Gobert).

LACONI AIMS 1000 POINTS – The french rider misses only 11 points to become the 16th rider in the history of the series to have scored at least 1000 points. The all-time leader is Fogarty with 3020.

WEEK ANNIVERSARIES

• may 2 – 1994, Donington, first presence in the front row, first podium and first fastest lap for Troy Corser - 1999, Donington, 50th fastest lap for Honda by Colin Edwards
• may 4 – 1997, Donington, first pole position for Neil Hodgson e 50th race start for Pierfrancesco Chili.
• May 7 – 1995, Hockenheim, first presence in the front row for Pierfrancesco Chili, first pole position for Troy Corser.


MILESTONES IN MONZA
• 1992 – first podium for Piergiorgio Bontempi. At the time the italian rider was at his 43rd start. Up to the end of his career (in 2004) Bontempi will pick up 2 other podium finishes (Spain and Portugal 1993) but he will never be able to win a race. At the moment he is the rider in SBK™ history with most race starts (194) without a win.
• 1995 – 100th race start for Carl Fogarty (that will end the career with 221), first win and first fastest lap for Pierfrancesco Chili and first podium for Colin Edwards;
• 1996 – 10th fastest lap for Troy Corser, at the moment the australian counts 40;
• 1997 – 150th race start for Carl Fogarty;
• 1998 – 100th race start for Scott Russell, first win for Colin Edwards;
• 1999 – 150th win for Ducati by Carl Fogarty in race 2;
• 2000 – 25th pole for Honda (Colin Edwards);
• 2003 – 200th win for Ducati by Neil Hodgson, first fastest lap for Regis Laconi;
• 2004 – 10th podium for Regis Laconi;
• 2005 – 10th pole position and 25th fastest lap for Suzuki (Kagayama), 25th podium for James Toseland, first presence on the front row for Karl Muggeridge.

HIGHS AND LOWS OF 2005 IN MONZA
• best race career result for Karl Muggeridge, a fourth in race 2 that he will repeat in Magny Cours race 1;
• best season race result for Marco Borciani, a 12th place in race 1 (scored also in Losail in race 1);
• worst season race result for Noriyuki Haga, 11th in race 1 (scored also in Losail in gara 2);
• double retirement for Steve Martin, during last season the aussie recorded a double DNF also in Phillip Island. A bad weekend for Martin, that in Monza recorded the worst qualifying performance of 2005: a 24th spot scored also in the following race in Silverstone.

HONDA’S SEQUENCES – The series of amazing streaks by Honda continues in the Supersport Championship, before Monza the situation is as follows: 28 pole positions, 30 front rows (absolute records) and 84 races in the points (3° record of all times).

CHARPENTIER – In the Supersport Championship Sebastien is only one win short of becoming the all-time winner. He misses only a win to reach Casoli and Muggeridge at 11. If he wins in Monza he will also equal the all-time winning sequence of 4 wins, that now belongs to himself (Silverstone 2005-Brands Hatch 2005) and Karl Muggeridge (Brands Hatch 2004-Magny Cours 2004).
Same situation also for the pole positions count, with Charpentier that has 14 and Muggeridge, all-time leader at 15.
The performances of the french rider are astonishing: during 2006 he ran in the lead for 90% of the total championship distance and the last time that he crossed the line during a race in a position above 3rd was in Brno 2005, lap 1, a race he eventually won.
If we exclude the retirement at Eurospeedway Lausitz in 2005, Sebastien climbs on the podium since Brands Hatch 2004.