WORLD SUPERBIKE CELEBRATES TWENTY YEARS AT DONINGTON
Donington Park will roar to the sound of World Superbikes
this weekend for the first time since 2001 as the European
Round of the championship takes place at the East Midlands
circuit. Six years on, the event holds special significance
because it was 20 years ago, almost exactly to the day, that
the World Superbike championship began.
Despite winning the first of his two WSBK titles that very
same year, the Ducati Xerox Team's Troy Bayliss had a difficult
time at Donington in 2001 and the Australian could only manage
to string together a 13th and a 9th place in the two races
after struggling with tyre problems. Troy goes into the third
round of this year's championship with one race win under
his belt as he attempts to make up the 26 points on the current
series leader and local favourite, James Toseland (Honda).
Troy Bayliss, 3rd in championship (64 points)
Troy Bayliss has been to Donington numerous times in British
Superbike, World Superbike and in MotoGP and rates it as one
of his favourite circuits.
"The last time I rode there was in MotoGP in 2005 and
it was a new surface but I crashed out in the rain. I've got
fond memories of Donington and I do like racing there, especially
the Old Hairpin part of the circuit, but I've never had the
results I'd like to have had - like a double win! We're going
to go there and give it a shot and all we can hope for is
we get a lucky break with the weather in England. This time
of year we could have anything, there was even snow a few
years back! Last year at this point in the championship, I
only had one win, so I'm pretty much on track. It's a tough
schedule ahead with five rounds in Europe in the next two
months, but I'm in good shape, everyone's working well in
the team and we're looking forward to kicking on."
Lorenzo Lanzi, 6th in championship (44 points)
Lorenzo Lanzi has only raced once at Donington, back in 2001
with a 250 GP team, but is confident that he can continue
his positive start to the season this weekend.
"I have already raced at Donington once, in 2001 with
250 GP but I haven't been there for six years. That's a long
time and the conditions will undoubtedly be difficult at this
time of year. I quite like the circuit, it's very technical,
very quick the first part and just plain slow the second so
for sure we will give the brakes a good workout at Donington.
As for the championship, it's a pity about the electrical
problem I had in Superpole at Phillip Island because we could
have had another good race. However as a start to the season
goes, it hasn't been bad, now we're going to Donington to
try and make up for points we lost in the race in Australia."
20 Years Ago
The World Superbike championship got underway with a round
at Donington twenty years ago on April 3rd 1988. The two winners
on the day were current Ducati Xerox team manager Davide Tardozzi
on a Bimota and Marco Lucchinelli (Ducati), but the overall
win went to ‘Lucky' as race results were combined for
the first, last and only time in World Superbike history.
In the nineteen editions since then there have been a total
of 11 champions and 55 different race winners, with Carl Fogarty
(4 titles and 59 wins) topping the lists ahead of double champions
Troy Bayliss and Troy Corser (35 and 33 wins respectively).
To celebrate the anniversary an array of stars, including
former champion Fred Merkel (Honda) and 2003 winner Neil Hodgson
(Ducati), will be riding their original race bikes on parade
laps on Saturday and Sunday.
The Circuit
Name: Donington Park Grand Prix Circuit
Length: 4.023 km
Pole Position: left
Finish line length: 564 m
Corners left/right: 5/7
Race distance: 23 laps/92.529 km
Statistics : Best lap: Fogarty (Ducati) 1m32.121s (1999).
Lap record: Corser (Ducati) 1m33.470s (1996). Superpole: Edwards
(Honda), 1m32.559s (2000).
2006 Results : no race
2001 Results : Race 1 - 1. Hodgson (Ducati); 2. Chili (Suzuki);
3. Hislop (Ducati). Race 2 - 1. Chili; 2. Hodgson; 3. Corser
(Aprilia).
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