The 2023 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship is well underway and we’re heading back to Europe for round three at the TT Circuit Assen in less than ten days. However, on this exact day 25 years ago, Noriyuki Haga would go on to make a major name for himself in just the second round of his rookie season. After a race win at Phillip Island saw him leave Australia as joint Championship leader, nobody expected the whirlwind of a dramatic Donington Park weekend.
The weekend itself was already a hot talking point before the racing, after the British weather decided to interfere; in the middle of April, snow settled in at Donington Park and a freezing cold weekend meant that the Superpole which was scheduled was cancelled, with the grid going off of the Free Practice classification. This left some interesting features throughout the grid, with Akira Yanagawa for Kawasaki on the front row whilst Gregorio Lavilla took a career-first front row aboard his Independent Ducati. Wildcard Niall Mackenzie took P7 on the iconic Cadbury’s Boost Yamaha livery, whilst double Champion and home-hero Carl Fogarty was left in 14th. Haga would start from ninth.
Coming from the third row, Haga was second by the end of the opening lap of Race 1 – another Yamaha rider would burst through the field from way down on the grid 23 years later, Toprak Razgatlioglu from 13th in 2021! Back to 1998 and Haga hit the front on Lap 6, passing polesitter Troy Corser. He was challenged by Corser and the two swapped places, eventually with Haga making a race winning pass on Lap 21 of 25.
For Race 2, it was a carbon copy of the first in terms of the start as Haga rocketing through from ninth on the grid once again to hit second by the end of Lap 1. Once again, the Japanese star was leading by Lap 6. However, a red flag for an oil spill from wildcard Chris Walker’s Kawasaki meant that he had pole position for the restart and he’d go on to win the race on aggregate. Haga had done the unthinkable; beaten the opposition at a circuit where they were supposed to have the upper hand on an aging Yamaha.
He went to round three at Monza with a 21-point lead, but a big crash in practice meant he was injured, although he still raced to two top ten results, and held the lead of the Championship by five points going to Albacete. He’d eventually finish sixth overall, 93.5 points behind Champion Carl Fogarty, winning two more races at Laguna Seca and then Sugo. In what was a crazy year of WorldSBK, Haga actually finished as the rider with the joint-highest number of wins in 1998, five, along with runner-up Aaron Slight and fourth-placed Frankie Chili.
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Source: WorldSBK.com