Confusion reigned in the first of two World Superbike races held today at Donington Park, with Ducati Xerox’s Troy Bayliss emerging from the fracus with victory – his first at the British circuit.
In a race that was stopped and restarted and eventually stopped again and was scored on aggregate time, Bayliss took the win over Rizla Suzuki’s Tom Sykes, the wild card rider from the British Superbike Series leading a lot of the race.
Third place ultimately went to Max Biaggi when his teammate Ruben Xaus crashed after the red flag and failed to return his machine to the pits. At the time of this writing, official results were still not available.
The first to lead the wet and ultimately drying and then wet again race was Hannspree Ten Kate Honda’s Ryuichi Kiyonari, but that didn’t last long with the Japanese star crashing out at Craner Curves. That gave Bayliss the lead over Sykes with Xaus third and Yamaha Motor Italia’s Troy Corser fourth.
Alstare Suzuki’s Max Neukirchner crashed out of the race on the sixth lap, ending what was a disastrous weekend thus far for him and his team.
On lap six Sykes passed Bayliss for the lead and shortly thereafter both Carlos Checa and Sebastien Gimbert crashed in the same corner – on the exit of Coppice. Corser’s teammate Noriyuki Haga was also out of the race, having been blackflagged with his R1 smoking badly.
Corser suffered his second crash of the day and his sixth of the weekend when he went down at Coppice and Makoto Tamada followed suit in a spectacular crash.
The race was then red-flagged, with the standings for the re-start going back to the ninth lap, giving Sykes a 3.991 second advantage over Bayliss and Corser, though Corser wasn’t allowed to restart.
Off the restart, Syles went into the lead with Bayliss’s teammate Michel Fabrizio the first to crash, the Italian losing it on the secdond lap of the restart.
Wildcards held the top two places early on with Sykes leading Leon Haslam, but when Haslam put his hand up and both he and Sykes slowed, Bayliss shot through and into the lead. Robby Rolfo crashed while trying to pass Sykes and Haslam, taking Haslam down with him, though the Brit was able to remount and get going.
Up front, Bayliss and Sykes were fighting it out out, albeit on aggregate time. Bayliss had a lead of 3.8 seconds, but Syles was matching most of his pace, if not Bayliss best single lap of 1:31.925 – almost at lap record pace despite absolutely no dry practice time.
Then the rain returned and Bayliss raised his hand because of the conditions and the race was stopped on the 19th lap, giving Bayliss the win over Sykes with Xaus getting credited with third – only to have that taken away and given to Biaggi. Gregorio Lavilla and Yukio Kagayama rounded out the top five.
Results
1. Troy Bayliss (Ducati)
2. Tom Sykes (Suzuki)
3. Max Biaggi (Ducati)
4. Gregorio Lavilla (Honda)
5. Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki)
6. Jakub Smrz (Ducati)
7. Fonsi Nieto (Suzuki)
8. Leon Haslam (Honda)
9. Karl Muggeridge (Honda)
10. James Ellison (Honda)
