Motorcycling: Toseland aims to add Brands to tally of victories

James Toseland tomorrow gets a last chance to plug a gaping hole in his racing CV – a victory at Brands Hatch, which is arguably the world's most spectacular superbike circuit.

He will swoop around the 2.6-mile Kent track on his 1,000cc Honda Fireblade in two 25-lap contests in the British round of the World Superbike Championship as he attempts to win his second title before he departs for MotoGP in 2008.

And because it is Toseland's final weekend there – next season he will be on the grid at Donington Park for the British MotoGP on a Yamaha – he wants to make it a big one.

"We have to win races this weekend," his manager Roger Burnett said yesterday. "Our strategy at the beginning of the year was to leave Brands Hatch with a 50-point advantage, because we didn't want to go into the final rounds fighting wheel to wheel for the championship."

Toseland, who currently has a 43-point lead over the Italian Max Biaggi, said: "If I can make it a 50-point lead the job becomes easier. Then you can afford to finish second in a race and lose only five points."

He started his campaign strongly yesterday, finishing fastest in the opening qualifying session by a quarter of a second from the reigning champion Australian Troy Bayliss on a Xerox Ducati, with the Yamaha Italia rider and former champion Troy Corser in third place. The Spaniard Ruben Xaus placed his Ducati fourth, from the Yamaha Italia machine of Noriyuki Haga.

"The team has worked brilliantly to give me a head start on the rest, and now I'm brimming with confidence for my first double win," Toseland said.

He rates Biaggi, on an Alstare Suzuki Corona, Bayliss, and Haga as his greatest rivals for the title.

"Haga is the main threat, but Bayliss also has to beat me this weekend to have any chance of holding on to the championship," Toseland said.

"But I don't consider that Biaggi will be at the front. It's his first time at Brands Hatch, and it isn't an easy track for anyone.

"At Brno for the last round the track was so wide and the barriers so far away that a superbike felt like a 600. But the trees are so close at Brands that when you're going fast it feels like you've got another 30 horsepower from your bike.

"At Sheene corner there's not a great deal of run-off. For sure everything is closer to you than at other places, but they can't physically make the track any safer because of tree preservation orders."

Biaggi's performance yesterday may have confirmed Toseland's predictions. He put in 31 laps, more than any other rider, but could only finish 14th fastest, 2.8 seconds slower than the Briton.

Toseland currently has 305 points to Biaggi's 262, with Haga lurking just two points further back and Bayliss on 249. Despite losing a finger and smashing his groin in a fearsome crash at Donington earlier this year, Bayliss has managed to tot up five victories.

But Toseland has displayed better consistency than his rivals, and has racked up six wins. Now, with three rounds and six races to come after Brands, he is poised to enter MotoGP with the honour of being the reigning world superbike champion.

He announced his decision to join the French Tech 3 in London on Wednesday, but is now trying to focus on his current day job. "Nothing is more important to us at this moment than winning the World Superbike Championship," Burnett said.

Toseland's departure for MotoGP, where he will ride for Tech 3 on a bike virtually identical to the Yamaha of the seven-times world champion Valentino Rossi, highlights the dearth of fresh young talent in the World Superbike Championship.

Jonathan Rea, 20, Leon Haslam, 24, and Leon Camier, 21, were all networking in the paddock at Brands yesterday, as was the 2003 world superbike champion Neil Hodgson, 33. Rea and Hodgson may well be figuring high on the shortlist of Hannspree Ten Kate, Toseland's current employers.

World Superbike Championship 10th round (Brands Hatch, Great Britain): First Qualifying: 1 James Toseland (GB) Honda 1min 26.400sec, 2 Troy Bayliss (Aus) Ducati 1:26.625, 3 Troy Corser (Aus) Yamaha 1:26.746, 4 Ruben Xaus (Sp) Ducati 1:26.815, 5 Lorenzo Lanzi (It) Ducati 1:27.268, 6 Noriyuki Haga (Japan) Yamaha 1:27.351, 7 Fonsi Nieto (Sp) Kawasaki 1:27.507, 8 Yukio Kagayama (Japan) Suzuki 1:27.544, 9 Roberto Rolfo (It) Honda 1:27.763, 10 Michel Fabrizio (It) Honda 1:27.823, 11 Max Neukirchner (Ger) Suzuki 1:27.928, 12 Karl Muggeridge (Aus) Honda 1:28.126, 13 Regis Laconi (Fr) Kawasaki 1:28.154, 14 Max Biaggi (It) Suzuki 1:28.215, 15 Steve Martin (Aus) Honda 1:28.262

Brands catch: Three rivals on Toseland's tailpipe

* Max Biaggi

The Italian four-times 250cc grand prix champion has won two races in his debut season in the series at 36. But he will have to work hard to reach the podium on Brands' blind corners and off-camber exits.

* Noriyuki Haga

Fans' favourite "Nitro Noriyuki" can ride millimetres from rivals without banging them off. But he has spent nearly a decade in world superbikes without winning the title because he has never put together a sustained run.

* Troy Bayliss

Tough, cheery reigning champion keeps on winning at nearly 40, but the Australian's big crash at Donington this year cost him a packet of points from which he has struggled to recover. Now lags 56 points behind.