World Superbike Race One

Colin Edwards led the first World Superbike race ever held at the all-new Lausitzring circuit from start to finish. The Castrol Honda rider, and defending World Champion, resisted early pressure from Britain’s Neil Hodgson in the early stages of the race. Then, as Hodgson faded back to an eighth place finish Troy Bayliss took over the job of pressuring Edwards for the lead. But Edwards kept his nerves, and lap times, steady and matched Bayliss lap for lap keeping a cushion of just under a second a lap. No matter how hard Bayliss pushed he couldn’t close the gap and Edwards rode to his third win of the season. Troy Corser had also been an early podium contender but he too slipped back down the field to finish fifth. As Corser slipped back Tady Okada and Franky Chili pushed up through the field. Okada made it two Hondas on the podium with a third place finish.

The win means that Edwards snuck back in front of Corser in the championship table, taking second spot behind Bayliss. Bayliss now leads the title by 180 points to Edwards’ 166. Corser is now back in third with 154 points and Chili, who finished fourth in the race now has 132 points.

Fuchs Kawasaki rider Gregorio Lavilla recovered from a start line incident that caused both a delay of the start and a shortening of the race by one lap to battle up through the pack to a sixth place finish. Just moments before the lights went out, Lavilla stalled his engine, he left his grid position and bump started the bike but the officials had already called a halt to the start. The race was subsequently restarted but one lap shorter, 23 instead of 24 laps, to allow the extra warm up lap forced by the restart.

First World Superbike race result:1 Colin Edwards, USA (Honda) 38m 47.683s, 2 Troy Bayliss, Australia (Ducati) 38m 48.346s, 3 Tady Okada, Japan (Honda) 38m 50.493s, 4 Pier-Francesco Chili, Italy (Suzuki) 39m 07.460s, 5 Troy Corser, Australia (Aprilia) 39m 08.301s, 6 Gregorio Lavilla, Spain (Kawasaki) 39m 10.504s, 7 Regis Laconi, France (Aprilia) 39m 13.960s, 8 Neil Hodgson, GB (Ducati) 39m 15.691s, 9 Hitoyasu Izutsu, Japan (Kawasaki) 39m 18.367s, 10 Stephane Chambon, France (Suzuki) 39m 18.712s.