World Superbike News

Ben Spies

This weekend the World Superbike Championship took place at Qatar with Ben Spies setting a new track record of 1.57.280 to take Superpole.

Spies beat Jakub Smrz by just a tenth of a second to take Superpole with Max Biaggi in third place.  Noriyuki Haga qualified in fourth followed by Tom Sykes in fifth and Shinya Nakano in sixth.

Race 1

Ben Spies on the factory Yamaha took the win in the first of Saturday’s 18 lap race’s ahead of Noriyuki Haga on the Ducati Xerox and Max Biaggi on the Aprilia Racing machine.

As the riders took the first corner, Spies had moved back to fourth place after a terrible start but he played the waiting game taking the three riders ahead of him as the race progressed.

He moved into third place with 14 laps to go passing the Aprilia of Shinya Nakano and then began chasing down the leading pair, first taking Haga and then Biaggi as the Italian run slightly wide of the mark.

As Spies disappeared into the distance, the battle continued with Biaggi and Haga, both fighting for the second step on the podium with Haga finally taking Biaggi with only 2 laps to go.

Nakano finished in fourth place in only his third World Superbike race followed by Hanspree Ten Kate Honda rider Carlos Checa in fifth, Shane Byrne on the Sterilgarda Ducati in sixth and Tom Sykes, team-mate of Spies, in seventh.

Max Neukirchner on the Alstare Suzuki crashed out on lap six after only managing a 19th grid position in Superpole while Jakob Smrz who had gone well all weekend crashed on lap 13 while battling for fourth spot with Nakano.

Here are the results;

1 19 Spies B. (USA) Yamaha YZF R1 36′06.304 (160,93 kph)
2 41 Haga N. (JPN) Ducati 1098R 1.893
3 3 Biaggi M. (ITA) Aprilia RSV4 2.168
4 56 Nakano S. (JPN) Aprilia RSV4 12.061
5 7 Checa C. (ESP) Honda CBR1000RR 12.597
6 67 Byrne S. (GBR) Ducati 1098R 12.971
7 66 Sykes T. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R1 13.570
8 9 Kiyonari R. (JPN) Honda CBR1000RR 19.306
9 11 Corser T. (AUS) BMW S1000 RR 19.388
10 55 Laconi R. (FRA) Ducati 1098R 20.981
11 91 Haslam L. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 21.164
12 65 Rea J. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 21.994
13 111 Xaus R. (ESP) BMW S1000 RR 22.917
14 23 Parkes B. (AUS) Kawasaki ZX 10R 27.218
15 33 Hill T. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 31.602
16 31 Muggeridge K. (AUS) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9 33.934
17 99 Scassa L. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R 47.496
18 25 Salom D. (ESP) Kawasaki ZX 10R 47.505
19 15 Baiocco M. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R 59.278
20 77 Iannuzzo V. (ITA) Honda CBR1000RR 59.295
21 24 Roberts B. (AUS) Ducati 1098R 59.338
22 71 Kagayama Y. (JPN) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9 1′04.008
RET 86 Badovini A. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R
RET 84 Fabrizio M. (ITA) Ducati 1098R
RET 96 Smrz J. (CZE) Ducati 1098R
RET 76 Neukirchner M. (GER) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9
RET 44 Rolfo R. (ITA) Honda CBR1000RR

Race 2

Ben Spies completed his first double win for the Yamaha World Superbike team for 2009 after claiming first place in the second race of the day after he was once again beaten off the line by both Haga and Biaggi.

The rookie AMA Superbike Champion took the win with a gap of 1.2 seconds from second placed man Noriyuki Haga, who was again followed by the Italian Max Biaggi.

Ryuichi Kiyonari on the Ten Kate Honda took fourth place ahead of Britain’s Tom Sykes in fifth.  Max Neukirchner finished in sixth followed by Shinya Nakano in seventh and Jonathan Rea in eighth.

Rea looked set to take a top position after setting a blistering pace early on in the race but by midway he appeared to have lost tyre grip moving him back to eighth.

Tommy Hill suffered with some sort of technical problems in race two which saw him returning to the pits and retiring from the race with 12 laps left to run on the Honda Althea.

Here are the results;

1 19 Spies B. (USA) Yamaha YZF R1 36′02.126 (161,241 kph)
2 41 Haga N. (JPN) Ducati 1098R 1.274
3 3 Biaggi M. (ITA) Aprilia RSV4 1.622
4 9 Kiyonari R. (JPN) Honda CBR1000RR 1.845
5 66 Sykes T. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R1 5.117
6 76 Neukirchner M. (GER) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9 9.512
7 56 Nakano S. (JPN) Aprilia RSV4 9.514
8 65 Rea J. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 12.621
9 11 Corser T. (AUS) BMW S1000 RR 13.842
10 111 Xaus R. (ESP) BMW S1000 RR 13.884
11 91 Haslam L. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 13.888
12 67 Byrne S. (GBR) Ducati 1098R 14.913
13 7 Checa C. (ESP) Honda CBR1000RR 15.762
14 55 Laconi R. (FRA) Ducati 1098R 15.920
15 71 Kagayama Y. (JPN) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9 19.565
16 23 Parkes B. (AUS) Kawasaki ZX 10R 21.759
17 96 Smrz J. (CZE) Ducati 1098R 28.523
18 31 Muggeridge K. (AUS) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9 40.499
19 24 Roberts B. (AUS) Ducati 1098R 43.761
20 99 Scassa L. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R 44.669
21 77 Iannuzzo V. (ITA) Honda CBR1000RR 48.955
22 15 Baiocco M. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R
RET 44 Rolfo R. (ITA) Honda CBR1000RR
RET 84 Fabrizio M. (ITA) Ducati 1098R
RET 25 Salom D. (ESP) Kawasaki ZX 10R
RET 33 Hill T. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR
RET 86 Badovini A. (ITA) Kawasaki ZX 10R