Spies and Rea earn Nurburgring wins
Added on Monday, September 7th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Spies and Rea earn Nurburgring wins
World Superbike Championship contender, Ben Spies, and Brit Jonathan Rea shared the wins in today’s duo of races at the historic Nurburgring circuit.
Haga and fellow championship aspirant, Ben Spies, both enjoyed strong starts in the opening race, as drama ensued in the first few corners. Makoto Tamada and John Hopkins were involved in a frightful incident, which saw the race red flagged almost immediately.
After ensuring both riders were OK, and once marshals and officials had cleared up the remains of the accident, the race was restarted. At the restart, Haga nailed his getaway, ensuring he slipped into the lead instantaneously. As the Japanese rider romped away, Rea, Spies, Leon Haslam and WSB veteran Troy Corser also each enjoyed strong starts.
As the top four settled into a rhythm, Max Biaggi occupied fifth, while countryman Michel Fabrizio tried in vain to steal the position away from him.
Back at the front, Rea was really beginning to pile the pressure onto the rear of Haga’s Ducati, determined to take the lead away from the championship leader. In no time at all, Spies had locked himself onto the back of Rea’s Honda, and was soon looking to make the same manoeuvre on the Brit.
Before long it was a five-way squabble for the lead, with Biaggi now on the tail of the leading quartet. Up ahead, Spies managed to find a way past Rea, demoting the Brit to third. Further afield, fellow Brit, and WSB debutant, Richard Cooper, debuting for the BMW Motorrad Motorsport team, made it as far as the points when he worked his way up to 15th. However this was to be short lived when he retired from the race following a fall part way through the twenty lap race.
As the race developed Rea managed to muscle his way past Spies, once again occupying second. However, determined not to lose out for too long, Spies took advantage of Rea running wide to regain the position. The same slight mistake from the Brit one lap later allowed Spies to breakaway, and also enabled Corser to temporarily close in on him.
As the race began to settle down, Rea broke away from the pursuing Corser to provisionally enjoy the remaining laps in a solitary third, before a charging Checa demoted him to fourth. At the half-way stage, Spies made the most of an opportune moment and dived past Haga and into the lead, a position he held until the chequered flag waved for them.
With Spies taking another victory the championship was very much open, depsite Haga finishing a close second. Checa stole third, while rea eventually grasped fourth, ahead of Biaggi, Haslam and Fabrizio. Not far behind, Corser, Sykes and Byrne completed the top ten.
It was reported after the race that Tamada and Hopkins were taken to the nearby hospital following their accidents, for checks for slight concussion.
Commenting on his race one victory, Spies said: “It was a good race, I didn’t get a great start and I lost a little bit of time to get past Rea, while Nori got away a little bit and I really had to move to catch him. When I got Nori we passed and re-passed. It was tough because he was extremely fast in the first section. The bike started moving around quite a bit and then with three laps to go it was time to put the hammers down and go.”
As the lights disappeared for the start of the second race, Haga eventually soared into the lead once again, overcoming the intentions of Checa, Spies and Rea.
Before long Rea took the challenge to Haga, stealing the lead away from him. Unlikely to give in too easily, Haga soon fought back, sweeping past Rea and back into the lead. Despite the early advantage, Haga slipped off of his Ducati Xerox machine into turn one at the start of the third lap, handing the lead back to Rea.
For much of the race, it was a Brit one-two as Haslam followed Rea around in pursuit of a strong finishing position. Having briefly slipped back, Spies eventually worked his way up to third, and was soon chasing down the Brits, hoping to make a dent in Haga’s championship lead.
Despite desperate efforts from Spies towards the end of the twenty lap race, Rea rode a perfect race to sweep to victory in race two at the German venue. Spies followed home second, which was enough to hand him the championship lead with three rounds remaining. Checa completed the podium, with Biaggi fourth, Haslam fifth and Corser sixth.
Commenting on his Nurburgring success, Brit said: “I tried to ride my own race and mind my own business. I got a really bad start and had to get a bit aggressive with people in turn 1 because I had to regroup and come from a long way back. I had to put moves down quick, because I really messed up race 1 which was all my fault. We changed nothing in between, my guys sat me down and explained exactly what I had to do to win. I gave it all today, the package was really strong.”
