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SBK: Laconi and McCoy winners of the Australian round (23/3/04) :
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 Laconi on his Ducati Fila shook off the ghosts that haunted him in the first round at Valencia and secured a fine win in the first 22-lap Superbike race, streaking to a clear 7.145 margin of victory over his closest challengers. With Superpole winner Laconi in a class of his own after an early race dust up with his team-mate James Toseland and Steve Martin (DFX Ducati), a superb four-way battle for second place supremacy was played out on the final circuits of the first race. The home crowd and Honda fans could hardly contain their delight when Chris Vermeulen (Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) pounced to secure his first podium finish in Superbike, and in second place to boot. Behind him, the hard charging James Toseland, who was leaving huge plumes of tyre smoke in his wake as he attacked the throttle, despite with an imperfect bike set-up, ended his first race in third place.
The second 22-lap event was held in different conditions, still dry and warm, but each of the factory Ducati runners was to find ill fortune awaiting in the gravel, traps, as first early leader Laconi and then Toseland fell. The battle for second between Steve Martin (Ducati DFX) and Garry McCoy (Xerox NCR Ducati) was thus eventually a battle for the win, and was decided in McCoy’s favour when Martin’s bike blew up. Despite the second place finish enjoyed once more by Vermeulen, the second race itself proved to be a completely different animal to the opener, as Pierfrancesco Chili (PSG-1) Ducati ripped to third place, having jumped from his first race 999 machine to his more familiar 998. Outside the podium places the Phillip Island race proved to be a fascinating contest, with many and various participants writing their names on the scoreboard. The first race sort-out for second place saw Martin fourth and Garry McCoy fifth.
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It was a satisfying event for the all-new Kawasaki Bertocchi machine of Mauro Sanchini, who held off the determined challenge of Marco Borciani and Valencia race winner Noriyuki Haga to take sixth. Borciani’s own luck, thanks to the crashes up the front in race two, just got better and he finished race two in fourth place, an excellent result for a rider maturing into a real force to be reckoned with. Chili, riding his 999 with a single sided swingarm in race one was a lowly ninth, while Chris Walker once more was the fastest Petronas rider in tenth. Four non-finishers included the flying Leon Haslam, the early lap leader in the opener. The minor places in race two were as closely contested as any others, with Troy Corser beating the out-of-sorts Haga to take fifth. Sanchini, Walker and Ivan Clementi (Kawasaki Bertocchi ZX-10) battled for seventh, the Italian taking the upper hand. Tenth place went to Haslam, a poor reward for his front row starts.
In the World Championship itself, Toseland is still the leader, although his race two DNF allowed Pierfrancesco Chili to creep up to within five points of his leading total of 61. One point behind, race winner McCoy shares his 55 points with Chris Vermeulen, but leads in the table because of his single race win. |
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