WSBK – WSBK Germany: Aprilia strikes back –

WSBK Germany: Aprilia strikes back

WSBK - WSBK Germany: Aprilia strikes back -

A hat-trick in the first round, doubled in the second: the RSV4s left nothing but crumbs for their competitors last Sunday at the Nurburgring! Biaggi and Aprilia take the opportunity to take back control of their respective championships…

A hat-trick in the first round, doubled in the second: the RSV4s left nothing but crumbs for their competitors last Sunday at the Nurburgring! Biaggi and Aprilia take the opportunity to take back control of their respective championships…

First Superbike race

As usual, Tom Sykes is off to a very good start. Carlos Checa is also in the game but his twin forces him too quickly to give up places to his opponents equipped with 4-cylinders … Forced to force in the turns, the Spaniard falls under braking at the end of the straight line in all start of race.

Within the peloton, Davide Giugliano therefore takes over from his teammate at n ° 7 and tries to keep up with the 4-legged pace. Jonathan Rea and his Fireblade make it a bit easier for him by joining the gravel trap from the 3rd loop.

A few moments after having made a superb overtaking on Leon Haslam, the Italian rookie and his Ducati n ° 34 also found themselves on the ground, in the 4th lap. Sykes then leads the race ahead of Biaggi and Melandri: the three strong men of 2012 are there…

A few lengths from the infernal trio, Davies and Laverty are fighting hard for fourth place at the controls of their RSV4s. A little further on, our French rookie, Loris Baz, disputes Leon Haslam for his sixth place. First Ducati rider, Sylvain Guintoli battles with our other compatriot Maxime Berger, as well as Zanetti and Camier.

In the 6th lap, Marco Melandri makes a mistake and leaves Biaggi alone with Sykes! The BMW rider gets up immediately and his bike does not seem to have suffered too much: furious, the "future ex-leader" of the championship will try to make up for it in the second round…

Warned of the abandonment of his enemy n ° 33, the Roman Emperor decides to beat the iron while it is hot: he attacks Sykes on the first braking of the 8th lap but widens and is passed by the English Ninja … The latter is warned: Biaggi will not make a quarter.

As Tom manages to dominate Max, behind, Loris Baz finds an opening on Leon Haslam and takes fifth place in the 10th lap. The first BMW is therefore behind three Aprilia and two Kawasaki. The fight in the constructors‘ championship is also particularly intense !

With nine laps to go, Max Biaggi takes the lead in the race. Laverty and Davies have stopped bickering: they are then two seconds behind Sykes but the gap is visibly reduced. Biaggi him, flies to the victory that would allow him to regain the lead of the championship, 6.5 points in front of poor Melandri.

Guintoli, always the first representative of the Bologna Reds, is in sixth place behind his – our! – compatriot Baz but ahead of Haslam and Camier. Starting again after his fall, Carlos Checa circulated in 14th place ahead of Lanzi and McCormick.

Two laps later, Sykes was ejected from the podium by Laverty and Davies: the Northern Irishman and the Welshman were a good tone above the Englishman. The Italian at the famous n ° 3 – Biaggi, who else? – remains untouchable and increases its lead to 5 seconds in the 18th lap !

The end of the race was led by Camier who overtook Haslam then Guintoli and fell on Baz, placed in 5th position. Warned of the canon return of Leon and his Suzuki n ° 2, Bazooka retaliates and unfortunately finds the limits of his ZX-10R … N ° 76 falls on the corner and offers "Kamir" a new Top 5.

Max Biaggi can be content to wrap himself in his last two laps, while Chaz Davies gives all he has to pass Eugene Laverty, to no avail. The second official Aprilia is out of reach: the private n ° 19 is happily content with the third step of the podium !

Supersport Race

Author of pole position and a very good start, Jules Cluzel found himself in the wheel of the Kenan Sofuoglu from the first corner. The n ° 16 is closely followed by the Honda n ° 23 of Broc Parkes, the n ° 11 of Sam Lowes, the n ° 14 of Gabor Talmacsi and the Kawa ‘n ° 99 of Fabien Foret.

While Jules fiercely teases Kenan, Fabien overtakes Gabor in the 3rd lap then Broc in the 7th … It is believed that the 2002 Supersport world champion is in a position to dispute the victory with the two strong men of the championship, but it is count without the fighting spirit of Lowes !

The young Englishman unfortunately fell in the 15th lap and left Foret alone in third place, too far from the two cadets Cluzel and Sofuoglu. Unlike the Moscow event, the Turk cannot get rid of his cumbersome opponent…

We must therefore wait until the last lap to see Kenan Sofuoglu celebrate with a masterful rear wheel on the finish line his fourth victory this season. Jules Cluzel finished second, half a second behind the confirmed leader of the championship, and six seconds ahead of Fabien Foret, third in both the race and the championship.

Second Superbike race

Eugene Laverty starts ahead of Tom Sykes, Max Biaggi, Marco Melandri, Chaz Davies, Jonathan Rea, Davide Giugliano, Loris Baz, etc. In the final chicane of the 1st lap, Sykes seized the lead. Surprised by this attack, Laverty traces straight through the gravel…

But the most surprising – astounding! – is undoubtedly the fall of Max Biaggi then lodged in the wheel of the two leaders! Marco Melandri thus inherits second place a few hectometers before completing the first lap, and thus benefits from a solid golden opportunity to erase his blunder in the first round….

Just behind the BMW n ° 33, the Aprilia n ° 19 of Chaz Davies climbed on the podium again … But there are still 19 laps to go and the Honda n ° 65, Ducati n ° 34, Kawasaki n ° 76, Aprilia n ° 58 following her are far from having said their last word !

Marco, who unlike Max in the first round saw his great rival fall before his eyes, takes his time and stays in Tom’s wake for seven laps. It is at the very beginning of the 8th loop that the Hedgehog of Ravenna crushes his right lever with mastery and passes Sykes on the brakes..

The official BMW rider does not let go of the pressure on his opponents, any more than on his machine and his tires: he is gradually moving away from Tom and Chaz. The latter brakes more beautifully and even more impressive than that of Marco the previous lap and takes the Kawa pilot ‘his second position..

Three seconds behind Davies and Sykes, three other Britons also ensure the show: Rea and Laverty fight for the gain of 4th place while Camier makes his way through the peloton to a new fifth place !

It was in the 8th lap that Melandri made his second mistake this weekend: while he tried to isolate himself in the lead, the 2011 Superbike vice-world champion lost the front and could not start again. His hopes of keeping the lead in the provisional standings are dashed: with two events to go to the end of the season, everything needs to be rebuilt !

Davies is thrown at the head of this second German round, ahead of his comrades Sykes, Rea, Laverty and Camier! Carlos Checa is sixth just ahead of sixth British driver Leon Haslam. Giugliano rolls alone in eighth place, a second and a half ahead of Baz and Guintoli.

While Laverty and Rea cross iron – or aluminum rather? -, Haslam suffered the same fall as Biaggi in the first round: he lost grip in the bumpy "snip" of the end-of-course chicane. N ° 91 painfully gets up with the help of the marshals.

Meanwhile, Max Biaggi and his Aprilia on the left flank, just shredded, continue their comeback from the bottom of the standings: 22nd and last at the end of the first lap, the transalpine Pirate benefits from a few crashes – and his speed of course! – to climb back into the Top 15 shortly after halfway through the race.

Another driver stands out, at the forefront this time: Leon Camier hoists his Gex on the podium by overtaking Johnny Rea then "Youdjin" Laverty in the 11th and 12th laps! The Crescent Suzuki team and its engine trainer Yoshimura see their one-year efforts finally rewarded.

Tom Sykes, on the other hand, suffered another crash at the end of the race. In less than two laps, the third and last man to play for the 2012 title goes from 2nd to 5th position … If his enemy n ° 33 is out of the race, n ° 3 nibbles two more points: after having overtaken Aoyama , Max Biaggi drops our Max Berger in the straight line…

While Chaz Davies flirts with the four seconds lead, Leon Camier and Eugene Laverty forbid any return to the leader by engaging in a superb fight: there are only four laps to go and the two friends in life do not give each other gifts on the track !

Jonathan Rea had a calmer end of the race, unlike Sykes who was under pressure from Carlos Checa! The reigning world champion whips his Ducati and does not leave the aspiration of the official Kawasaki. However, it is difficult for the Catalan to launch an attack without risking another fall. Suddenly, "El Toro" watches for the slightest error.

But none of the five drivers in front of him failed in the final laps. Chaz Davies thus wins his first World Superbike victory! The reigning Supersport world champion is this time ahead of Eugene Laverty on the official Aprilia, who climbs to the second step of the podium for the second time today..

In the absence of Biaggi – and Melandri … -, it is Leon Camier who completes the Top 3 at the controls of his GSX-R1000 and precedes two other subjects of her Majesty Elizabeth II: Jonathan Rea on CBR1000RR and Tom Sykes on ZX-10R.

The two Ducati Althea finished in 6th and 7th position while Loris Baz was ahead of the first S1000RR – that of Badovini – and the two Ducatis of the Pata team. Max Biaggi wins three points for 13th place and thus slightly consolidates his return to the WSBK throne.

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