Despite the chilly temperatures at Donington Park and luckily it wasn’t pissing rain, both races went off without any big hitches.
Marco Melandri’s media value certainly went up a couple of notches after the ‘Biaggi Affair’ and his coming back from 9th on the grid to battle to victory and win his first Superbike race made fans sit up and take a big notice of the Italian and how fast that Yamaha R1 has become.
Carlos Checa and his third victory of the season and Jakub Smrz taking a second place podium in race 1, just confirmed that no one is really missing those Ducati factory bikes.
Check out the highlights of race 2 after the jump and what the two winners had to say.
“I had a great win in race one.
I was just behind a very aggressive bunch of riders so I had to work hard to keep my rhythm and push through,” said Melandri.
“I managed to close in on Smrz with five laps to go and take my first win.
Race two was a little more difficult.
I was suffering from a head cold and lost concentration a little mid way.
I am very pleased to be on the podium again.
We have been working very hard in preparation for today’s races and we did very well, I had a lot of fun and I think we proved that we have a very good package.
I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.
Thanks to Yamaha, my team and my sponsors.
”Carlos Checa:“In Race 1 I was struggling at the start, I didn’t have feeling with the rear tyre and as a result I lost a lot of positions.
But I have to say it was one of the most exciting races of my career, so many riders touching, crashing, everything! After the first laps I was able to build up a good rhythm and start moving up through the pack one rider at a time.
It wasn’t easy but I pushed hard and then two laps from the end I realised that I could maybe get past Haslam too for third.
I’m really happy because I didn’t think I’d get from 11th on lap one to the podium.
We made the decision to use the hard tyre solution for the race and even thought we paid for this at the start it turned out to be the right decision in the end.
We opted for the softer tyre in race two; we knew it would be very high performing although a bit less so towards the end of the race.
It remained pretty consistent but towards the end I had to change my riding a little to manage the situation.
My strategy was to get to the front, built up a bit of a lead and then manage that lead and today everything worked perfectly.
It was great to win at Phillip Island but today meant even more to me.
A lot of people may remember what happened to me here many years ago (*); that day I lost something here but today I can say that I found it again.
”*Checa suffered almost fatal injuries in a crash in 1998 at Craner Curves at Donington Park and had to have his spleen removed.