American Ben Spies closed in on the chase for the World Superbike crown with a winning double in the ninth round at Donington Park in which Noriyuki Haga saw his lead in the standings slashed as he crashed out of the second race.
Riding the factory backed Yamaha, Spies proved the dominant force throughout the weekend, securing his eighth pole position and leading from start to finish in both races.
In the opening race Max Biaggi trailed him home, seven seconds down, with Haga finishing in third place.
“That has to be the perfect weekend,” said Spies who is now just 14 points adrift of championship leader Haga having previously been 48 points behind.
“It is not the way you necessarily want to close in on the title but you have to capitalise on what happens in racing - we’ve suffered similarly earlier in the season.” Telegraph.co.uk
Britain’s Leon Haslam finished second in race two, more than six seconds behind the Texan with Michel Fabrizio of Italy in third.
In the first race, Spies finished more than seven seconds ahead of Italy’s Max Biagi and over 10 seconds in front of Haga.
Haga still tops the overall stadings with 308 points with Spies on 294 one place ahead of Ducati’s Fabrizio on 257. Fox Sports
Haga, third in race one, held that same position early in race two before being promoted to second by Biaggi’s error. But Haga held the position for less than a lap before a heavy crash through the fast Coppice turn, heading onto the back straight.
The Yamaha star, who has suffered four non-scores of his own this season, rode into the distance to claim his tenth victory of the year by 6.622 seconds after backing off in the closing stages.
Five rounds, 10 races and a potential 250 points remain before the end of the 2009 WSBK season, starting next time out at Brno.
The last lap began with Haslam, Fabrizio, Byrne and Sykes covered by 1.4 seconds and with roughly equal track between them. Haslam rode a mistake free last lap to equal his best finish of the season so far, while Fabrizio returned to the podium after a lowly 12th in race one. Yahoo! Eurosports
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