Laguna Seca a familiar place for Melandri and Davies
The BMW Motorrad GoldBet Team is heading to the west coast of the United States of America. This weekend the famous "Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca" near Monterey hosts the 12th round of the 2013 eni FIM Superbike World Championship. The last visit of the series to the Californian circuit dates back to 2004, but for both BMW factory riders, Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies, it is familiar terrain. Melandri knows Laguna Seca very well from his years in MotoGP. He took part at the Laguna US Grand Prix six times, twice finishing on the podium.
"I have good memories of Laguna Seca" said Marco Melandri. "I rode there when I was in MotoGP and I was twice on the podium. Laguna is one of the best tracks on the calendar. I'm very happy that the World Superbike organisers decided to come back to this circuit. Our bike should work well on this track. We only need to check the grip level the asphalt offers once we are there and work hard to achieve the best possible result. I feel really good and am preparing with training for the next rounds. This final part of the season will be demanding but I want to give my best."
Chaz Davies, on the other hand, raced on the Californian track several times in the national series (AMA) and, in 2007, he made his MotoGP debut at Laguna Seca.
"Laguna Seca has been consistently a very good circuit for me. For some reason I find the rhythm quite easily at that track. I have done quite a few laps there in AMA so maybe I have a little bit of an advantage this year. It is a very good circuit and along with Portimao, I would rate it as one of my favourite tracks. It has the challenge of the 'Corkscrew' which is very steep and I think very exciting to watch. It is one of the most physical circuits I have ever raced on. You don't get any time to rest and you really need to know how to handle the bike because the circuit is just built into the terrain - there were no computers used or any designers! It is just some tarmac in the hills following the natural landscape, which is nice. Our target for this weekend is as always, a double podium."
