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 "It was twenty years ago today..." Well,
though The Beatles quote isn't totally accurate, it is twenty
years since SBK started, and appropriately enough it was
right here at Donington Park that the first ever SBK round
took place. Roger Burnett, who now manages James Toseland,
set pole position and Davide Tardozzi, manager of Xerox Ducati,
took the first ever win. Times change, of course, and over
the years there have been quite a few major changes to the
detail of Superbike racing. The most obvious of these saw
the inclusion, despite protests from certain Italian factories,
of 1000cc four cylinder bikes and, a couple of years later
and despite protests from everyone apart from the Italians,
the adoption of a single tyre brand across the entire championship
series. But the spectacle and excitement of SBK has never
changed. As far as Donington Park is concerned, there have
been other fairly unique events in its SBK history. Nori
Haga making his first foray
outside Japan and utterly destroying the opposition after
Superpole was snowed (!) off sticks pretty clearly in my
mind, for example.
Talking of snow, though it stopped short
of that we were treated to just about the entire gamut of
other conditions normally encountered in this green and pleasant
land. Friday practice was cold and wet, Saturday alternated
between cold and dry, warm and dry and very windy. It certainly
made the technical managers keep on their toes as they tried
to decide on tyre and suspension choices. Not everyone got
it right, as Friday saw the unscheduled, and rather violent,
departure of several riders in both SBK and Supersport. Indeed,
the Supersport championship got seriously stood on its head
as Charpentier, Curtain and Parkes all ruled themselves out
of the rest of the weekend's activities in heavy crashes.
Charpentier may well require surgery after exacerbating old
injuries as well, so the defending champion will have a massive
hill to climb on his return. SBK saw the temporary, but no
less sad, loss of Yukio Kagayama, again after injury.
 Saturday stayed dry, though cold for much
of the time. When the sun broke through it was really quite
pleasant, despite the strong, gusty wind that accompanied
it much of the time. When I say strong wind I do mean strong,
as not only was it enough to blow several marquees around
the paddock, it was also sufficient to severely disrupt things
for some of the riders. As I'll explain later.
Qualifying started
well and just got better. Though the usual suspects were
as quick as you might expect,
there were a few other interesting faces popping up near
the top of the timesheets. In particular, Ruben Xaus made
a welcome return to the top, as did Fonsi Nieto and Michel
Fabrizio. Happily, Steve Martin had a ride, the DFX team
having announced that they did not have the funds to support
two riders after Philip Island. Steve managed to secure extra
sponsorship and is now riding on a race by race basis. He's
a smashing guy, fast and smooth, and we wish him all the
best. As the day got warmer and the wind dropped, some pretty
astonishing things happened. Not least of which was both
Troy Bayliss and Troy Corser smashing the lap record for
the circuit. No big deal, you might think. Except that they
broke the absolute motorcycle lap record. Yes, Superbikes
being ridden round Donington Park faster than MotoGP machinery.
Not just a little faster, either - over half a second faster
than Valentino Rossi can get round. That really is impressive.
And so it's no big surprise that both Bayliss and Corser
went into Superpole at the top of the timesheets, followed
by Xaus. Lorenzo Lanzi seems to have found some of the form
that had deserted him until recently, getting around four
hundredths of a second faster than local hero James Toseland.
And that was the class of the day, with a huge, nearly half
a second, gap back to Max Biaggi, Fonsi Nieto, Regis Laconi
and Nori Haga. Fabrizio rounded off the top ten, with Muggeridge,
Brookes and Rolfo split by just two hundredths of a second
behind him.
 Superpole threw
up a few surprises. The first was Giovanni Bussei, who came
in at the bottom of the cut
and rode a blinding lap, faster than either of the DFX Hondas
to end up twelfth. That's a popular result for a rider who
is renowned as one of the nicest guys on the grid. What was
rather more of a surprise was Roby Rolfo failing to negotiate
the Melbourne Hairpin on his warmup lap, going straight on
and out of contention. Josh Brookes, riding the Alto Evolution
Honda brilliantly, got caught out by the wind as a strong
gust lifted the front wheel as he hurtled around Hollywood
and dumped him into the gravel. Which surprised us but probably
surprised him rather more. But we were all flabbergasted
to see Troy Corser go the same way, the front lifting and
sliding
away at Redgate at the start of his flying lap. No such misfortune
for Bayliss, though, who rode faultlessly to take pole a
full seven tenths faster than second placed Nori Haga. Regis
Laconi
took a surprise third, pipping Toseland by twenty two thousandths
of a second. Lanzi, Xaus and Biaggi headed the second row,
with Corser's regular qualifying lap fast enough to put him
eighth. Muggeridge rode an excellent lap on the second Alto
Evolution Honda to head the third row from Nieto, Neukirchner,
Bussei and Fabrizio. Steve Martin was the last Superpole
rider to actually finish, with Josh Brookes being placed
ahead of Rolf by virtue both of his performance in qualifying
and his actually getting onto the timed lap rather than crashing
out beforehand...
On to race day, then. A cold and fairly
gripless start saw British wildcard Zanotti crash out during
warm-up, happily without injury, and generally lap times
were something over a second slower than Saturday qualifying.
Men of the moment, again, were the two Troys, Corser obviously
none the worse for his Superpole mishap. James Toseland was
third, a full half a second slower than Bayliss but half
a second ahead of Laconi. Biaggi was snapping at the Kawasaki
rider's heels, seeming to still struggle with the Suzuki's
setup.
 Race one, and it was Troy Bayliss who made
the initial running with a blinding start from pole position.
But James Toseland made the most of his front row position,
launching the Ten Kate Honda into a close second place and
sticking doggedly to the back of the Ducati. Behind the lead
pair, Regis Laconi lead Ruben Xaus with Lorenzo Lanzi following
the two former factory Ducati riders. Fonsi Nieto made a
good start as well, slipping through into sixth with Troy
Corser a disappointing seventh, just ahead of an off-form
Nori Haga. Even more of a surprise, Max Biaggi was in ninth
at the beginning of the race, only just holding of Giovanni
Bussei.
Laconi managed to hold off the hard charging
and exceptionally popular Xaus for just one lap, the lanky
Spaniard sliding past early in lap two. And Troy Corser
charged up the field, finishing the second lap in fifth place,
rapidly reeling in the Frenchman to pass him just a lap later
and climb to third by lap five. Then on the sixth lap, as
Toseland started to close on Bayliss, the Australian had
a huge tankslapper which resulted in him crashing violently
at Coppice, virtually severing a finger and ruling him out
of the second race as well. Toseland was able to capitalise
on Bayliss' misfortune, extending a huge lead over second
placed Corser while Max Biaggi rampaged up through the field
from an appalling start to take third by half distance. And
so, at least at the front, it stayed. Nori Haga was on something
of a charge as well, a titanic scrap for fourth with Ruben
Xaus only finishing when Xaus crashed out a couple of laps
from the end. Alessandro Polita had a massive crash on the
Suzuki Italia GSX-R, being taken away to the medical centre
and
taking
no further part in proceedings for the afternoon.
So the end result was a hugely popular win
for James Toseland, who didn't put a single wheel wrong for
the whole race, with Troy Corser a second and a half behind
and Max Biaggi a further second back. Haga came fourth from
Lanzi, while Laconi yielded to the pressure from his team-mate
to finish seventh. Max Neukirchner rode to an excellent
eighth on the Suzuki Germany GSX-R and Roby Rolfo came ninth.
Jakub Smrz (who?) rounded
out the top ten on the Carracchi Ducati, just ahead of the
Alto Evolution Honda pairing of Muggeridge and Brookes.
 Race
two, then, had a rather depleted grid.
Pole was empty with the enforced absence of Troy Bayliss,
and Polita was sitting things out as well. Toseland was in
the happy position of being able to stay in the lead of the
championship no matter what the result of the race, and reacted
to the lack of pressure by immediately going into the lead.
Nori Haga slotted into second this time, with Corser third,
Laconi fourth and Biaggi fifth. Xaus continued his good form
with a sixth after the first lap, again ahead of Lanzi on
the factory bike. Nieto sat just ahead of Neukirchner with
Roby Rolfo closing the top ten. It looked like a carbon copy
of race one for a few laps, as Toseland extended a lead and
looked comfortable for a double. But on lap four the Ten
Kate Honda just stopped on the exit of Redgate. The Englishman
could only look on in disgust as the field streamed past,
leaving him to walk back to the pits. So Troy Corser had
the lead and set about extending it. But to no avail, as
both Haga and Biaggi worked their way through until they
were all in a bunch and swapping places. It could easily
have been any of their races, or indeed none of theirs
as they
tripped each other up and threatened to take each other out
of the picture. But that didn't happen.
Further down the field, Ruben Xaus climbed
up to fourth in an unusually controlled display, staying
ahead of Lorenzo Lanzi in what must have been a very important
psychological battle. Lanzi stayed ahead of Laconi in a similar
battle while Roby Rolfo hauled himself up to seventh. And
this Smrz bloke, of whom nobody has heard, finished eighth,
just ahead of Karl Muggeridge. Muggas finally got the better
of a race long battle with Neukirchner and Steve Martin,
the Suzuki rider ending up tenth and Martin twelfth having
been pipped to eleventh by Giovanni Bussei in the last few
seconds. Nieto ran ever so wide at Coppice, going onto the
gravel at walking speed and dropping the Kawasaki in a moment
of pure comedy. The Spaniard was last seen being pushed down
the track by a couple of out of breath marshals trying
to bump-start his bike.
At the front, when the dust settled and
the banged fairings had been repaired it was Haga who got
across the line first after Biaggi ran wide at the final
corner. Corser finished third in what turned out to be a
good afternoon for Yamaha.
So we go off to Valencia with Toseland retaining
a slim championship lead over Biaggi. It's all going to get
exciting...
 Race
One
1 James Toseland (Honda)
2 Troy Corser (Yamaha)
3 Max Biaggi (Suzuki)
4 Noriuki Haga (Yamaha)
5 Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati)
6 Fonsi Nieto (Kawasaki)
7 Regis Laconi (Kawasaki)
8 Max Neukirchner (Suzuki)
9 Roberto Rolfo (Honda)
10 Jakub Smrz (Ducati)
Race Two
1 Noriuki Haga (Yamaha)
2 Max Biaggi (Suzuki)
3 Troy Corser (Yamaha)
4 Ruben Xaus (Ducati)
5 Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati)
6 Regis Laconi (Kawasaki)
7 Roby Rolfo (Honda)
8 Jakub Smrz (Ducati)
9 Karl Muggeridge (Honda)
10 Max Neukirchner (Suzuki)
Championship Standing
after three rounds:
1 James Toseland 115
2 Max Biaggi 110
3 Nori Haga 88
4 Troy Corser 81
5 Lorenzo Lanzi 66
6 Troy Bayliss 64
7 Max Neukirchner 46
8 Ruben Xaus 45
9 Roby Rolfo 36
10 Fonsi Nieto 30
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