Checa Does It Again In England

Henny Ray Abrams | July 31, 2011

Althea Ducati’s Carlos Checa won his 10th World Superbike race of the season today at Silverstone in England, the Spaniard doing the double to extend his championship lead to a whopping 62 points with four rounds (eight races) remaining.Checa took the lead on the seventh lap and pulled away to beat Yamaha’s Eugene Laverty by just over two seconds while his championship rival Max Biaggi could only muster a fourth (he was 11th in race one). Once Checa got past early leader Laverty, there was stopping him. Laverty rode alone in second while Biaggi and Yamaha’s Marco Melandri fighting over the final podium spot after they caught and passed Aprilia’s Leon Camier.Fifth went to Camier, clear of a battle that went to the finish between Sylvain Guintoli and wild card John Hopkins, with Guintoli getting the spot on the last lap.Hopkins was just ahead of BMW’s Leon Haslam. Michel Fabrizio and Ayrton Badovini rounded out the top 10.Race Two

1.                  Carlos Checa (Ducati)

2.                  Eugene Laverty (Yamaha)

3.                  Marco Melandri (Yamaha)

4.                  Max Biaggi (Aprilia)

5.                  Leon Camier (Aprilia)

6.                  Sylvain Guintoli (Ducati)

7.                  John Hopkins (Suzuki)

8.                  Leon Haslam (BMW)

9.                  Michel Fabrizio (Suzuki)

10.                  Ayrton Badovini (BMW)

 

Henny Ray Abrams | Contributing Editor

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.