World Superbike 2008 – Round One (Qatar)
Superbike Race 2
Fonsi Nieto’s GSX-R1000 stormed off the line and looked to have the inside run at turn one but poleman Corser held his line to lead the field through turn one. Noriyuki Haga quickly displaced Nieto from second place to make it a Yamaha 1-2. Disaster early on for Yukio Kagayama who was stretchered from the circuit. A battle royale started to unfold between Sterilgarda Ducati teammates Ruben Xaus and Max Biaggi with the pair tripping each other up as they tussled over fourth place. Meanwhile the trio in front of them started to pull away…
Nieto lost a little ground on the leading Yamaha men over the first two laps but on the next circuit reinstated his challenge for the lead with a new lap record that sneaked him right back onto the tail of the R1s. A lap later Nieto muscled past both Yamahas to take the lead but Corser came right back at him a couple of corners later. Looming behind was Max Biaggi who had finally managed to shake off the advances of his teammate and quickly sprinted onto the tail of Haga where he immediately started to look for a way past. Race one winner Troy Bayliss was in sixth place and increasing his pace with each lap…
Haga then again got the better of Nieto for second place which left the Suzuki man to contend with Biaggi. Xaus and Bayliss were also looking to gatecrash the party. The top six were covered by only two seconds. Further behind them Michel Fabrizio seemed to be strengthening his charge and was not out of the picture.
Bayliss moved past Haga for fifth as they entered the second half of the race. Meanwhile at the front of the pack Max Biaggi decided to take his turn at the front after sneaking past Corser. Xaus then took third place from Nieto and at the following corner shoved it under Corser to steal second. Corser returned the favour only seconds later to put his Yamaha back up to second but it wasn’t long before Xaus was through again. Then to add insult to injury Bayliss caught Corser unawares and pushed the Yamaha man back to fourth place where he had an aggressive looking Nieto to contend with. It wasn’t long before Nieto was through on Corser but meanwhile the three Ducati men up front had started to pull away…
Nieto’s challenge was not over and with six laps to run he was back on terms with the Ducati men and on the next lap forced his way past Bayliss to take third place. At the front Sterilgarda teammates Xaus and Biaggi continually traded the lead.
Another lap down and Nieto squeezed past Biaggi to take second place and then set his sights on Xaus.
Three to go and Nieto then hit the lead and celebrated with a very sideways smoking exit out of a right hander reminiscent of the days when the only form of traction control was the throttle tube located on the right hand bar…
As the race entered its final stages it was Nieto up front and looking strong, Xaus and Biaggi chasing hard while Troy Bayliss had started to receive some unwanted attention from Xerox Ducati teammate Michel Fabrizio.
As they got the last lap board Nieto had a small advantage over Xaus who in turn had a few lengths on Biaggi. Bayliss was a relatively distant fourth but was now getting the better of Fabrizio.
Xaus was all over the back of Nieto in the latter stages of the final lap but could not match the pace of the Suzuki onto the main straight and Nieto took the first win of the year for the GSX-R1000 with a 3-tenths of a second advantage over Xaus. Biaggi third, 1.3 seconds behind the winner. Bayliss 6.4 seconds down in fourth ahead of Fabrizio with Lanzi next best while early pacesetter Corser drifted back to seventh in the final laps.
Next weekend it is another one of the fastest circuits on the calendar, Phillip Island.
