PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
Red Devils Roma Aprilia’s Leon Haslam beat Kawasaki Racing Team’s Jonathan Rea to take his first World Superbike win in a thrilling photo finish in race two of series’ season opener at Phillip Island .
It was a bit of déjà vu all over again on the final lap as once again Rea was leading and Haslam on his former teammate’s heels. But Haslam learned from his race one mistake—which he pointed out post race one—and gave himself enough room to make sure he could draft Rea across the line this time. It all went according to plan and Haslam crossed the line ahead of Rea by a hundredth of a second.
Both Rea and Haslam split wins at the season opener and go into the second round in Thailand tied in points.
In third was Aruba.it Ducati’s Chaz Davies who was looking for better than third, but happy considering it was his best result at what considers one of his weakest tracks.
Rea’s teammate, former World Champion, Tom Sykes crossed the line in fourth and once again ahead of last season’s rival, reigning World Champion, Sylvain Guintoli on the Pata Honda.
Rookie Nico Terol finished sixth on the Althea Racing Ducati, an improvement from the former 125cc World Champion’s eighth place finish in race one. Behind Terol was Voltcom Crescent Suzuki’s Randy De Puniet who was toughing out a badly bruised lower back from an epic high side earlier in the week.
MV Agusta Reparto Corse’s Leon Camier finished eighth ahead of Terol’s teammate Matteo Baiocco. Rounding out the top-10 was former CEV Moto2 racer Roman Ramos on the Team Go Eleven Kawasaki.
Team Manager/rider Larry Pegram finished 14th for Team Hero EBR, earning a couple of points in the American’s World Superbike debut.
Fill in rider and local hero, Troy Bayliss pulled off around lap 15 to change tires on his Althea Ducati and finished the race 16th.
Rookies Michael van der Mark on the Pata Honda and Jordi Torres on the Red Devils Roma Aprilia ended their excellent World Superbike debut on the ground as the pair crashed out in separate incidents. Haslam’s young teammate Torres crashed out of the race trying to out brake Sykes into turn one to try and take fifth with five laps to go. A lap later, Van der Mark crashed out of fourth with four laps to go. Despite his error, the young Dutchman did make an impression by leading the race for five laps earlier on in the race.
2015 World Superbike
Phillip Island
Race Two Results
1. Leon Haslam (Aprilia)
2. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki)
3. Chaz Davies (Ducati)
4. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki)
5. Sylvain Guintoli (Honda)
6. Nico Terol (Ducati)
7. Randy DePuniet (Suzuki)
8. Leon Camier (MV Agusta)
9. Matteo Baicco (Ducati)
10. Roman Ramos (Kawasaki)
