WSBK: Donington Qually - Baylisstic Bayliss

Troy Bayliss destroyed the opposition with a devastating Superpole lap at Donington today, lapping three quarters of a second faster than 2nd-placed Nori Haga.
It was an exciting session, with three crashes amongst the 16 riders who qualified for the 1-lap grid shootout.
Australian Josh Brookes topped the tumbling trio with a jaw-dropping 140mph hop-off. He lowsided just before Schwantz Curve, and slid for quite some time along the grass before coming to rest. Luckily he immediately jumped to his feet.
Roberto Rolfo showed that not every 250GP star can take to Superbikes like a duck to water. He had a simply ludicrous crash on his out-lap, before even starting his timed lap. Outbraking himself into a hairpin, he just ran straight off the track. He sat there spinning his rear tyre until it was buried up to the chain in gravel, then gave up, looking like a right idiot.
The sharpest intake of breath was reserved for Troy Corser. Officially the best Superpole rider, with enough watches to keep a pick-pocket going for weeks, we never expect anything short of brilliance from Corser in qualifying. Starting 2nd-last in Superpole, due to being 2nd-fastest in pre-qualifying, Corser arrived at Redgate, a.k.a. turn one, and immediately hopped off the lowside. He gamely kept his hand on the clutch, bouncing through the gravel attached to the Yamaha, but it was pointless. Luckily for him, he will benefit from new rules saying that if you fall off in Superpole you only go back one row, meaning Corser, who was 2nd in pre-qualifying, goes to the back of the next row, i.e. 8th. (Under previous rules, if you hopped off during your Superpole lap, you would go to 16th regardless of your position in pre-qualifying.)
Riding past his disgruntled fellow Troy, Bayliss put in the fastest lap that a superbike has ever accomplished around Donington. Unless something very strange happens in the races, Bayliss is the one to look out for.

WSBK: Steve Martin Wins Reprieve, Will Race At Donny

Steve Martin will race in the forthcoming World Superbike meeting at Donington, according to Motocorse.com. He has managed to thrash out a race-by-race deal for the next 3 races. This comes after the unexpected news that his team, DFX Honda had dropped him due to a sudden loss of sponsorship money.
This is promising news, but Martin could still be left without a ride when his 3-race deal expires. He will need some good performances if he wishes to attract enough sponsorship to continue.

MotoGP:Jerez 250cc and 125cc Races

I haven't reviewed the baby GP classes before, but in this case, they were too exciting to ignore. The 250cc race in particular was stunning.
250GP
This race was incredible. One of those races that has you falling off the edge of your seat in amazement. For the last couple of years, the two-fiddy class hasn't produced much in the way of great racing, but that all came to an end at Jerez.
The early stages had all the typical craziness that you expect from a bunch of young lunatics on 2-strokes, but the race really took off a few laps in.
A group of 4 racers had broken away at the front. Hector Barbera fell off, and then there were three.
Dovizioso, Bautista and Lorenzo proceeded to turn the race into an outright classic, beating each other up all the way round the track, lap after lap. The reigning champion Lorenzo had excellent straight line speed, Bautista was hurling his bike around like a lunatic, and Dovi was down on power, but able to brake as late as he liked and take any line he wanted. This all added up to some scintillating racing.
More than once, the three young hooligans went into corners 3 abreast. You expect that into turn 1 on lap 1, but they were doing it right up until the last couple of laps. Lorenzo leading, Bautista making a crazy block pass, pushing them both slightly wide, then Dovizioso sailing up the inside of both, and holding an impossibly tight line to keep in front.
When the dust settled, Jorge Lorenzo had taken the win, from Bautista 2nd and Dovizioso 3rd.
Lorenzo, who after his Qatar victory parked his bike and danced a ludicrous jig next to it, went right over the top with his celebrations again. A supporter handed him a flag. He seized it, and strode arrogantly into the gravel trap, looking around like an English lord surveying his estate. Finally he planted the flag in the gravel in front of thousands of his fans. It carried the slogan, "Lorenzo's land". It made Valentino Rossi's bowling celebration look tame.
125GP
The 125cc Grand Prix earlier wasn't as insane as the 250's, but it was dramatic nonetheless. Pole sitter Pasini's bike died half way to the grid, forcing him to push it with his feet a la Fred Flintstone. He started from the pitlane, making up a huge number of positions before ramming Britain's great hope for the future, Bradley Smith. Unusually for somebody with flaming ginger hair, Smith kept his temper and rejoined, finishing last but showing a lot of character. Pasini trundled round to the pits, where he chucked his toys out of the pram.
The race was a photo-finish. Lukas Pesek led into the last corner, but Gabor Talmasci somehow managed to take a later apex, sit the bike up a little and get an excellent drive out of the corner (which isn't supposed to work on a 125!) Talmasci managed to slipstream past Pesek right on the line, winning by a ludicrously small 0.014 seconds.

With the MotoGP race being a bit of a procession up front (though the antics of Toni Elias livened up the midfield), the feeder classes supplied much of the entertainment. The 250 race was a stunner, but the 125's produced a respectable level of testosterone-driven lunacy too. Let's hope they can keep it up!

MotoGP: Rossi Unbeatable at Jerez

It wasn't a classic race, but it showed us another side to Valentino Rossi.
Usually, The Doctor likes to play with his victims before finally disappearing with a blistering last lap. After having some of his own medicine forced down his throat by Stoner at Qatar, Rossi decided to change his tactics.
Starting from 2nd position on a ludicrously tight grid (1 second covering the top 15, with OJ trundling along in 16th place 0.003 seconds outside that), Rossi was beaten to the first corner by Dani Pedrosa. The teeny Spaniard, still stinging from being called "El Niño" by Rossi in an interview, Pedrosa was determined to turn his pole position into a victory.
Half way round the first lap, Rossi moved past his miniature rival. The Italian started putting in qualifying laps, gradually pulling out a tenth here and a few hundredths there. Pedrosa fought back gamely, but slowly slipped backwards, the gap growing greater as the tyres wore down.
By the last lap, Rossi was 3 seconds in front, dropping to 1 second as he wheelied over the line. To celebrate his first win for many months, The Doctor bowled over some of his fans, who were dressed as ninepins. Luckily for them, he used an imaginary bowling ball instead of chucking his crash helmet.
Behind the two stars, Edwards put in an impressive performance in 3rd place. If the only people in front of you are called Rossi and Pedrosa, you're not doing too badly. It was a lonely race for the Texan, but his first podium in the best part of a year. The 2007 Yamaha suits him a lot better than the chattering 2006 machine.
Spanish Psycho Toni Elias was an amazing 4th. Taking up his usual mid-pack position off the start, Toni suddenly lit the blue touchpaper halfway through the race, overtaking 2 people in about 30 seconds. They say these 800cc bikes need a 250 riding style. Nobody ever rode a 250 the way Toni was riding that Gresini Honda and lived to tell the tale. Sideways into all the heavy braking zones, Toni was the most entertaining thing in the race.
Stoner was 5th for Ducati, producing excellent times as the race went on. Incredibly, in a post-race interview with the BBC, the young Aussie berated the other riders for making dangerous overtaking moves early on! Casey destroyed his team-mate Capirossi, who has looked awful so far this year. We know that Capirex craziness is in there somewhere, but he had better produce it quickly if he wants to stay in MotoGP. Another good race from Stoner though, who showed that he can stay calm and fight for maximum points rather than chucking it down the road in a shower of sparks. We'll see another couple of wins from him this year.
John Hopkins will be furious with himself after hopping off in 4th place, with a chance of a podium. It robbed Suzuki of the decent result they deserved, but they will surely find the podium later in the year.
Overall, it was a decent race rather than a classic. It was impressive to see Rossi putting in about 25 qualifying laps one after the other to break Pedrosa, and showed that The Doctor has rediscovered his addiction to winning. It also showed that Dani isn't quite ready to fight wheel-to-wheel with his main rival, but he's getting closer. This season is fascinating as it unfolds. With some long straights in the next couple of races, will the newly-mature Stoner take more wins, or can Vale and Dani beat him on the twisty bits? I can't wait to find out.

MotoGP: Jerez Preview

The big question for the forthcoming Jerez GP is: are Ducati going to be quick or what?
The Italian team stunned everybody with Casey Stoner's debut victory at Qatar, but Jerez is a very different racetrack, much more twisty and without such a long straight. Ducati didn't look too great there at the IRTA pre-season test, while Rossi and Pedrosa looked awesome for Yamaha and Honda.
Will this be a replay of qualifying session zero? If so, expect Rossi to win, pursued by little Dani. However, if Stoner and Capirossi can detonate the explosive straight line speed of the Dukes, along with the high corner speed that the Bridgestones give them, then we could be seeing the 2nd Ducati victory of the season.
But the potential of the Ducati can't be judged by one race, where Stoner was pretty quick around the twisty bits, especially on the last lap, but largely relied on lighting the burners and screaming down the front straight 15K's faster than the Yamaha. If Ducati are going to be quick at Jerez, then why weren't they that quick at the test?
Stoner didn't particularly need good corner exit speed at Qatar, he could just wait for a few seconds and arrow past the opposition. On a shorter straight, the Yamaha's higher corner speed and earlier throttle application could give just enough advantage to get over the finish line first, which is all that matters on the last lap.
I'm backing The Doctor to win. He was incredibly strong on the brakes at Qatar, sailing past Pedrosa easily into turn one. This should suit the Jerez track down to the ground. It has been a long time since Rossi's last victory, and he will be extremely determined to stand on the top step this weekend. With the Yamaha's awesome cornering, Rossi will be able to stick with anybody around the lap. Should there be a Ducati in front of him going into the final corner, I wouldn't bet against a strong move from the Doctor, barging past his opponent and unsettling him for long enough to make a bolt for the chequered flag.
Who knows? Maybe the Dukes will pull something out of the bag again, maybe Pedrosa will show the same pace he did at the IRTA test, or maybe normal #46 service will be resumed. It's going to be fascinating.

WSBK: Sponsorship Woes End Steve Martin's Season

According to Motocorse.com, Aussie World Superbike rider Steve Martin has lost his ride at DFX Honda due to sponsorship problems.
The news seems to have come as a complete shock to Martin, and is yet another blow to a rider whose WSBK career has never quite fulfilled its potential. The Australian had been assured by the team at the start of the season that sponsorship was in place. DFX will continue to run Martin's team-mate Michel Fabrizio, who has personal sponsorship from Honda Europe.
This is yet another example of the difficulty of securing sponsorship for motorsport, and bike racing in particular. World Superbikes are much cheaper than MotoGP, and have a more fan-friendly format of two races per meeting. However, money is still inextricably linked with success. Sponsors want to see results, not potential, and this is seemingly what has led to Steve Martin's WSBK demise for this season.
The World Superbike championship is in good form this year, with Honda, Yamaha, Ducati and Suzuki all having produced excellent machines. Losing one rider is not the end of the world for the championship, but it will be worrying for teams without cast-iron sponsorship contracts.

F1 versus MotoGP

In the interests of science, I watched the Australian Boremula 1 Grand Prix. Not live, of course. I barely stayed awake through the mid-afternoon replay, never mind watching it live at 2am. This was so that I could compare an F1 grand prix with a Motorcycle GP.
The first thing I noticed was how hideous the cars are these days. They're seriously ugly, with all kinds of chunks sticking out all over the place, but fair enough, if you want a race series based on aerodynamics then that's what you get.
The race to the first corner was quite exciting. Sure, you only get 2 or 3 cars abreast on the straight compared to 4 or 5 bikes, but they're racing close and hard. However, once they got to turn 1, they all funnelled into single file.
That's about it.
Nothing else happened. Well, actually, Coulthard did try to liven things up by crashing into and vaulting over another car. That was pretty cool. Webber did a 360 degree spin on the way into the pit lane. Don't see MotoGP bikes doing that very often.
So there were about 30 seconds of interest in the race. The remaining 90 minutes were simply a parade of very expensive, very ugly cars. If anybody wanted to overtake, they went into the pits to do it.
The "race" was spirit-crushingly, soul-destroyingly tedious.
I'm not rabidly opposed to car racing. Bike racing's my favourite, but I quite like watching cars race. I even like watching the Le Mans 24 hours, where they are expected to overtake the constant stream of backmarkers using skill, while in F1 they burst into tears and demand that the backmarker gets out of their way. (But of course, they can't even overtake a car that's 4 seconds a lap slower than them).
The recent sponsorship woes in MotoGP are clearly ridiculous. Sponsors throw money at F1, despite the fact that it's the most pathetically dull form of motorsport. That's due to the hype. F1 is the biggest show in the world simply because it says so, and millions of dimwits believe it. There is more excitement in a single MotoGP race than an entire season of F1, and that's not even an exaggeration.
Dorna has recently decided to link up with professional promoters to help find more sponsorship. This is a good thing. MotoGP needs to blow its own trumpet, because in terms of glamour and excitement it beats F1 hands down. MotoGP has characters, excitement, overtaking and innovation. Dorna have an outstanding product, they just have to sell it as effectively as those depressingly dull accountants in the F1 paddock.

Ilmor Throw In The Towel

The Eurosport website has reported that after 3 races in MotoGP, 2 of them last season, Ilmor have "temporarily" withdrawn from the series due to lack of sponsorship.
When the Factory Yamaha team struggles to get sponsorship, finally pulling the rabbit out of the hat with the FIAT deal, you know that the smaller teams would have to win the lottery to find financial backing. Team KR has also struggled to find sponsorship, and they have a former World Champion as a team owner, a former World Champion as a rider, and a podium trophy from 2006.
Ilmor might know a lot about engines, and in the hands of McWilliams, the bike was faster down the straights than the Yamaha in qualifying at Qatar, but the driveability and corner speed were just pitiful. The bike is a dog, several seconds a lap off the pace. A sponsor would be insane to back Ilmor rather than Team KR, Kawasaki, Suzuki or any of the other teams who could offer a lot of advertising space for minimal funding.
It is deeply disappointing that Ilmor were unable to build a competitive bike, but it's a dog-eat-dog world in MotoGP. If you're not in with a chance of a win, then you're just making up the numbers.
I'm sure that Ilmor didn't think it would be easy to build a bike, but they seem to be utterly shocked at the difference from car racing.
If they want to return to MotoGP, they'd sure as hell better bring a real bike next time.

MotoGP: More Qatar Analysis

There's a good, and lengthy, post from Matthew "Birty" Birt on the Qatar MotoGP race. (It's worth setting aside a good 10 minutes to chew it over).
He agrees with some of the opinions that I had given, and has a load of background information too. On the subject of Ducati's enormous straight-line speed advantage over Yamaha, Birty says "I bet Valentino felt like he'd taken a chopstick to a gunfight."
Nice!
It's also worth mentioning one of the issues he raises, that John Hopkins had an amazing race, despite being badly beaten up by an enormous highside in testing. It was a great performance from the hard-as-nails Anglo-American. He admitted in a post-race interview that he barely made it through turn 1 after taking the chequered flag, due to the pain in his wrist. That's the kind of racer we need in MotoGP, here's hoping he recovers soon.

Doohan: "Stoner Is No Dill"

In an interview with the Herald Sun, an Australian newspaper, former 500GP superhero Mick Doohan has made the startling revelation that Qatar GP winner Casey stoner is no dill.
"He is no dill," said the 5-times World Champion.
Although scientists have been unable to test Doohan's assertion, a cursory examination shows that Stoner bears little relation to dill, pictured on the right.
Doohan also paid his young compatriot the great compliment of saying "He is a bit like Kevin Schwantz."
Stoner's performance at Qatar certainly backs this up. Schwantz, who is a hero to many motorcycle racing fans, not least Valentino Rossi, was known for being extremely fast but erratic. That certainly applies to the little Aussie, but he has a long way to go if he is going to emulate the Texan by winning a world championship, 25 races and legions of fans.

MotoGP Qatar: Advance Australia Fair!

Is it just me, or are Aussie MotoGP race winners getting younger?
The 2006 MotoGP season ended with the Australian national anthem, and the first race of 2007 finished to the same tune. This time, it wasn't the veteran Troy Bayliss but the baby-faced Casey Stoner.
It was a flawless, breathtaking first victory for the little Ducati rider. He went toe to toe with Valentino Rossi and beat him all ends up. After a sensational qualifying lap that left him second on the grid by a mere 5 thousandths of a second, Stoner rode like a champion to take his first ever MotoGP win, at the same track where he took his first pole position last year.
The main question over Stoner has never been his speed. He caused a sensation by taking pole at Qatar last year. However, he did chuck that 990cc Honda down the road on a regular basis. Anybody who has followed the winter testing season will know that the Australian has had very few crashes on the Bridgestone-shod Ducati, even when the new electronics were so unrefined that his team-mate Capirossi declared the bike unrideable.
It is well known that the front Bridgestone tyre inspires much more confidence than the Michelin equivalent, as can be seen by quick Bridgestone runners who switch to Michelin and are suddenly all at sea. (Tamada and Nakano being the classic examples).
In the Qatar race, Stoner showed that he had total confidence in his tyres, even when they were worn down at the end of the race.
In fact, Stoner "did a Rossi", by setting the fastest lap as he took the chequered flag. Rossi had been menacing, staying close and repeatedly passing his Aussie Rival, but just couldn't live with the incredible final lap that Stoner posted.
The Ducati had dramatically outpaced the Yamaha on the enormous start/finish straight, screaming down the kilometre between the first and last turns like an exocet missile, fully 20K's faster than Rossi's bike. What was really impressive was Stoner's pace around the twisty bits, as he pulled away from Rossi around the whole last lap.
It would take a fool to bet against Stoner winning more races this year. If he can perform at this level throughout the year, he could finish in the top 3 of the championship. That's a lot to ask from a youngster in his 2nd year of MotoGP, but it looks like Pedrosa has a major rival for the next decade.
At the first MotoGP race of 2009, there will almost certainly be no Valentino Rossi. Stoner will be just 23 years old...

MotoGP: Rossi Tops Qatar Qualifying

Valentino Rossi took pole for Saturdays Qatar GP by just 0.005 seconds from Ducati's Casey Stoner. Colin Edwards took 3rd, with Toni Elias 4th, Dani Pedrosa 5th and John Hopkins taking the final spot on the 2nd row. Reigning world champ Nicky Hayden could only manage 10th, and Marco Melandri was 9 places behind his team-mate in 13th.
The two Yamahas look to be on outstanding form, having also set very quick times on race tyres.
Casey Stoner took pole position at Qatar last year, and was hugely impressive as he came within a hairsbreadth of taking another today on his new Ducati.
Amazingly, Toni Elias was the quickest Honda, following Edwards closely to set his quick time.
Jeremy McWilliams ended the session with a high speed highside. He did not appear to be badly hurt, but his condition is not yet known. He finished second last on the timesheet, just in front of his team-mate Andrew Pitt.

MotoGP: 2007 Preview Rant

It's the time of year when everybody's writing a preview of this year's racing, and they're all virtually identical. To spice things up a little, I've decided to do my preview in the form of a rant.
Who are the potential champions?
Rossi, Rossi and Rossi.
Alright, Pedrosa and Hayden both have some chance of winning the 2007 title, but The Doctor has to be the odds-on favourite.
Valentino Rossi lost the 2006 title for one major reason: the 2006 Yamaha was an ill-handling bucket of bolts. The early races of the season showed that Yamaha had dropped a real stinker. The bike had hideous amounts of chatter, and therefore had an aversion to going round corners quickly.
Eventually, workers were forced to sneak out of the Yamaha factory in the middle of the night and chuck the 2006 frame into a nearby canal, then dust off the 2005 frame that they'd turned into a coffee table. It still didn't handle well, leading to the most surprising moment of 2006: Rossi's identically-dressed chum Uccio actually doing something useful. At the Turkish GP, he pointed out that the bike had eaten its front Michelin, not the rear. Of course, nobody listened because, well, he's just Uccio. After that, the bike had all sorts of engine trouble for the rest of the year.
There was another reason why Rossi didn't do well in 2006: he was still messing around with Formula One. Luckily he has realized the truth about F1. The racing isn't worthy of the name, the drivers are boring idiots, the team bosses are boring idiots, the fans... Well, you know the rest. The F1 journalists are such snobs that they faint whenever Kimi Raikkonen passes out drunk in the street or whips out his little general in a strip club. Yawn. Rossi would've died of boredom in F1.
Unlike the 2006 bike, his year's Yamaha M1 is a missile. We know this because Edwards is quick on it. The Texan Tornado is famous for his inability to ride a chattering bike, so last year's machine was a nightmare for the easy-going Yank. This year, he looks brilliant, which means that Rossi looks unstoppable.
Dani Pedrosa had a stunning debut year in MotoGP, proving that he is every bit as good as the people who could be bothered watching 250GP said he was. (Well, 250 just doesn't have the unbeatable teenage insanity of the 125's, does it?)
Unfortunately we also discovered that the pocket-sized Spaniard has a personality to suit his physical presence: if it was any smaller it wouldn't exist at all. The debate rages on: is Dani a genetically modified mutant grown in an HRC test tube, or simply an advanced robot? Do they debrief him after a race, or just plug a USB cable into his earhole and download the data to a laptop?
Dani's main problem seems to be that he doesn't like real racing, which is all knees, elbows, and tyre marks on the leathers. At Brno, he complained that Rossi was too tough on him. Oh, boo hoo! Ross didn't rack up those top-class titles by prancing around like a ballerina. He won them by scraping fairings with racers like Max Biaggi and Sete Gibernau. Pedrosa will have to grow a pair if he is going to win the title without a serious machinery advantage, and the 2007 Honda's just not quick enough for that. I can't see the expressionless little baby winning this year's title unless something goes horribly wrong for Rossi.
Nicky Hayden has an outside chance of winning the title, but no more than that. Bear in mind that Hayden took the lead of the championship fairly early in the season last year, and was always trying to safeguard his points lead. The only time that The Kentucky Kid went hell for leather was at his home race at Laguna Seca.
Hayden is certainly under-rated by many people, mainly starry-eyed Rossi fans. Another thing that has emerged to prove that Hayden is better than many think is the performance of the 2007 Honda.
It's crap.
And Hayden's 2006 bike was an unnatural hybrid of 2006 and 2007 parts. It turns out that the 2007 parts came out of a dog's backside, and Hayden wasted hours of practise time trying to make them work. Yet he still won the title.
Nicky has the balls to retain his #1 plate, and battle with Rossi or anybody else. The best thing for him will be if he has a slowish start to the season, and thinks "Screw it, Dude! I'm Number One! Let's just win or crash!" I believe that he is capable of taking several wins this year, if he taps into the speed he always shows at Laguna without returning to his early MotoGP performances, which involved crashing with 5 laps to go at nearly every single race.
So there you have it. Vale, Dani or Nicky? I reckon The Doctor will win the title, but with potential racewinners realistically including Rossi, Pedrosa, Hayden, Edwards, Capirossi, Stoner, Melandri, Hopkins and Vermeulen, this should be an outstanding year!

MotoGP: Ten World Champions To Race At Qatar

An article on motogp.com has pointed out that there will be no less than 10 riders on the MotoGP grid at Qatar who have won a motorcycling world championship.
While Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden and Kenny Roberts Jr have all won the top class title, it is perhaps the list of 250cc champs that will contain the ones to look out for on the new 800cc MotoGP machines.
The 250 champions are Rossi, Pedrosa, Capirossi, Melandri and Olivier Jacque. Although OJ is struggling to come back up to speed and Marco is struggling to find any kind of consistency, The Doctor, Dani and Capirex will all surely be fighting for race wins on a regular basis.
Coming from the production-based world championships, the main contender is Colin Edwards. The Texan Tornado has two World Superbike titles under his belt, and although this might not be the best preparation for the new MotoGP bikes, Edwards has altered his riding style and has been impressive in testing.
There will be two World Supersport champions on the grid, both Australians. Chris Vermeulen and Andrew Pitt are the pair who have won the WSS title. With the Suzukis running well in testing, Vermeulen could well steal his first MotoGP win this year. Keep an eye on him at Laguna Seca in particular. Andrew Pitt will merely be hoping to develop the dog-slow Ilmor bike and not finish last, but his world title shows that he has the guts to battle it out for a whole season of racing.

MotoGP: Yamaha Finally Announce Fiat Sponsorship

It has been the worst-kept secret in MotoGP, but Yamaha have finally confirmed that they will be sponsored by the Italian car manufacturer FIAT in the coming season.
The bikes of Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards will be painted in a blue and white colour scheme, pictures of which have been posted on the Motoblog.it website.
Although it is unusual for a car company to sponsor motorcycle racing, FIAT do not currently have any major involvement in motorsport on the world stage, except as the parent company of Ferrari. FIAT have had some success in rallying in the past year, winning the European championship, and it is thought that they may enter the World Rally Championship in time for Valentino Rossi to drive for them when he quits MotoGP.

WSBK: Bayliss Bounces Back at Phillip Island

World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss bounced back from last week's Qatar nightmare with a win and a 2nd place in his home races at Phillip Island.
The popular Aussie had put the Ducati on pole position, beating James Toseland, who admitted he should have pushed harder in the middle sector, and Troy Corser, who had a couple of scary moments on his Superpole lap when he was caught by huge gusts of wind in fast corners. "Nitro" Nori Haga had taken the final front row spot, beating Max Biaggi by a few hundredths of a second.
In Race 1, Biaggi made a stunning start from row 2, briefly leading but being swallowed by the pack almost immediately. Max's last visit to Phillip Island was on an HRC MotoGP machine in 2005, when the Roman Emperor was thrown over the handlebars on lap one, with the Michelin tyres still cold. It seems that Max has not yet worked up the confidence to push hard on cold Pirellis either, as he tiptoed around the first 2 or 3 laps.
James Toseland took the lead, and produced a dominant performance as he led the field. He took a very distinctive wide, swooping line into turn 2, leaving the door wide open for those behind. However, his line was just so fast that anybody wishing to overtake would have to charge into the corner, severely compromising their exit speed.
Troy Corser was close behind, looking hungry for his first win of the season, but he had to battle with the resurgent Troy Bayliss. The two Troys beat each other up as Toseland stayed in front.
Behind them, Biaggi and Haga were having a Battle Royale, with the Roman showing that he can hold his own against WSBK's hardest racer. It was an evenly matched fight, with the two of them coming close to collision several times, but skilfully keeping the racing safe.
Up front, Corser suffered from the Yamaha curse as his rear tyre wore out, giving him a rollercoaster ride as he struggled to get the power down on the fast left-handers leading onto the start-finish straight. It was a losing battle. With his Pirelli rear completely shot, and doing its best to fire him off the bike, Corser lost out first to Biaggi then Haga.
Bayliss saw that Toseland was also struggling for grip, and overtook the Englishman with 4 laps to go, later admitting that he probably should have waited another lap or two, but it didn't matter. The Australian took the victory, but not without a hard fight. He tried to go round the outside of Toseland, who responded with a crunching manoeuvre, slamming his Honda into the side of the Aussie's Ducati, then apologising at the first opportunity to take his left hand off the bars. Bayliss persisted, taking his first victory of the year from Toseland and Biaggi.
Race 2 saw Biaggi make another lightning start to take the hole shot, but again he was too cautious into turn 1 and was completely swallowed up by the field into turn 2.
Troy Corser took advantage, and led the field for the next few laps. However, Toseland and Bayliss were again on outstanding form, and it was soon a three-way scrap between them. The Englishman took the lead, and a couple of laps later Bayliss mugged Corser for 2nd place. Haga and Corser then had to argue amongst themselves for 3rd.
Behind them, Max Biaggi had passed Ruben Xaus and, with a clear track in front of him, was lapping faster than the leaders. He had to claw back more than 2 seconds, but eventually it was a 5-man freight train at the front.
Toseland had conserved his tyres better than in race 1, and managed to pull out a gap from Bayliss. Behind them, the Suzuki of Biaggi was duking it out with the two Yamahas of Corser and Haga.
Toseland crossed the line first, for his first ever victory at Phillip Island. Bayliss had to settle for second. Biaggi, Haga and Corser came out of the last turn three abreast. Corser was pushed out onto the grass and finished 5th. Biaggi was gaining on Haga, but it was the Japanese rider who took the final podium spot, the Roman ending up in 4th.
James Toseland now leads the championship, from Biaggi then Bayliss.