Gregorio Lavilla got a dream start to his 2007 British Superbike campaign with a double win in round one at Brands Hatch today. Team mate Leon Haslam secured a 6th and 4th place to give the Airwaves Ducati team an early lead in the manufacturers championship and Greg a 14 point advantage over his closest rival in the riders standings.
Race one saw Leon move from 4th place on the grid into 3rd and Greg drop from 2nd to 4th position. However, by the end of lap 4 Greg had made his way into 2nd place setting a new lap record of 1:25.724 in the process. After a brief coming together with first placed Leon Camier Greg then took the lead on lap 7. Haslam remained in 4th, locked in a close battle for the final podium spot, with 3rd placed Chris Walker, as his team mate moved ahead of the field. However Leon dropped two places in the final 5 laps to finish the race in 6th. Greg crossed the line 1.701 seconds ahead of the rest of the field to achieve his first win of 2007.
Race two was action packed starting with Greg hitting turn one in first place he then proceeded to settle into a fast, comfortable rhythm. He had already built a good lead by the end of the first lap and a battle royal was building for the remaining podium places with six riders, including Airwaves Ducati rider Leon Haslam, challenging. Having pulled out a 10 second gap on the chasing pack Greg was clearly disappointed to have his lead written off by the introduction of the safety car on lap 15. The race distance was then increased to 23 laps and from the re-start Greg saw his massive lead slashed to under a second. However the Spaniard held onto to the top spot to take win number two. Haslam benefited from the safety car incident and had moved up to 4th when the race was red flagged and declared on lap 21.
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