Saturday, March 6 2010
The World Superbike Championship opened at Philip Island with a close first place finish by Leon Haslam of the Team Suzuki Alstare.
Motorcycle insurance from The Bike Insurer
Haslam finished just ahead of Michel Fabrizio, just a fraction of a second ahead of Fabrizio at .0004 seconds; this was the closest finish that has ever been witnessed at a Superbike race. Coming in third place behind Fabrizio was his Ducati Xerox team-mate Noriyuki Haga, who was under a second behind Fabrizio.
The first race begin with Haslam taking the lead, with Fabrizio following in second place, and Haga blistering through the pack to take hold of the third place position. As early as the second lap, the gap between the leading three riders begin to widen as Haslam, Fabrizio and Haga pulled away from the pack that was headed by Jonathan Rea to a five-second lead over the leader of the pack, Rea. In the last four laps leading into the finish, Fabrizio attempted to make his way around Haslam but failed in his attempt, but was able to come within a fraction of a second of the young Brit that resulted in a photo finish of the race. Noriyugi Haga, Fabrizio’s team-mate came in less than a second behind Fabrizio to garner the third position at the podium.
The Bike Insurer sponsors the coverage of the World Superbike Championship on Eurosport.)
