Brits impress in Australia
Added on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Brits impress in Australia
It was a pleasing weekend for the Brits at Phillip Island on Sunday as a number of British Superbikes and Supersport graduates made an impression in their debuts on the World Superbikes circuit.
Five British riders are flying the Union flag in the 2009 World Superbikes Championship and there was every reason to be optimistic for the season ahead – particularly for British Superbikes graduate Leon Haslam.
The former HM Plant Honda rider secured a podium finish on the privateer Stiggy Honda in race two of his return to WSB, adding to a top-six finish in race one and the podium that he secured as a wildcard in the final race of last season at Portimao.
“I’m over the moon today for our great result,” Haslam said after race two. “It’s our first time out there racing and to be able to bring home a podium finish is just fantastic!
“The team and I have made good progress and although we still have more to come, the bike and the team are obviously just great. We managed improve the bike a bit from race one to race two and I could fight my way up to the front guys. We definitely know in which direction to continue in the next round in Qatar.”
After four years in BSB, the 25-year-old was happy to get into the thick of the action and revealed that he had managed to get up-close and personal with Ducati’s Michel Fabrizio.
“It’s a big credit to the team, three months ago they were just building the bike. It’s the first round and we’re already on the podium. There’s been a big effort and we’ve kind of repaid all that effort. There was a bit of argy-bargy with Fabrizio, I had a tyre mark from him from the first lap and later on in the race we had a bit of a tussle but that’s what World Superbike is all about, it’s a fantastic result.”
Also posting impressive results was Ten Kate Honda’s Jonathan Rea who secured a fifth and a ninth place finish on his first competitive round since stepping up from Supersport whilst Tom Sykes also secured two top-ten finished with Yamaha.
Tommy Hill picked up points with a 13th and 14th place finish although there was less success for BSB champion Shane Byrne, who posted two DNF’s after crashing out in both races.
In the Supersport event, Haslam’s former teammate Cal Crutchlow came fourth in a thrilling Supersport race that saw first and fifth separated by just 1.098sec.
Turkey’s Kenan Sofuoglu took the flag just 0.060 seconds ahead of Andrew Pitt, with former Kawasaki MotoGP rider Anthony West taking fourth.
Crutchlow battled hard in a thrilling battle to get onto that podium before a mistake saw him go from third to fifth in the dying moments. Approaching the final straight, the 23-year-old caught the slipstream of Eugene Laverty to beat the Irishman to the line by just one hundredth of a second.
“That was a really close race, really exciting,” Crutchlow said afterwards. “It has been great for me to come to Phillip Island and come fourth in my first World Supersport race on the Yamaha YZF-R6 although I was a little bit disappointed as I feel I had the potential to win.
“Unfortunately in the last lap I had two false neutrals, one going into Honda and the other going into the hairpin. I was closing to the guys in front, but it cost me some time. I guess that’s the way racing is but I’m still happy, I’m coming away with a bag full of points and we’re off to Qatar with high spirits!”
