WSBK : Sylvain Guintoli wins race 1 in all Aprilia domination in Australia

from TWOWHEELSBLOG 

The first race of round 1 at Phillip Island was fast, furious, and it also had its big moment of drama, as Sylvain Guintoli took a stupendous first victory with Aprilia - his fourth in World Superbikes - with a total domination of RSV4s as Eugene Laverty and Michel Fabrizio(Red Devils Roma) completed the podium.

Carlos Checa was in pole position with Laverty and Fabrizio on the front row, but Checa’s Panigale wheelied slightly, giving Laverty the holeshot and he was followed Sykes, Melandri, Checa, Haslam, Rea, Baz, as both Fabrizio and Guintoli would have a bad start - with the Italian dropping to 11th.

After falling back to fourth, Checa started his attack on Melandri, but the BMW rider answered back immediately, while Laverty in the lead was trying to put space between himself and Sykes, as a battle broke out between, an unexpected Leon Haslam who decided to put his tires through the wringer and Melandri, allowed Laverty and Sykes to break away from the rest of the field, but the Kawasaki rider couldn’t keep the Aprilia rider’s devastating pace.

Davide Giugliano left the race on the third lap when his Aprilia decided to die, as the race continued with a wicked rythmn as Laverty was already one second ahead of tighly knitted pack that consisted ofSykes, Haslam, Checa, Melandri, while further back saw a third group with Guintoli, Chaz Davies and Loris Baz as Fabrizio began cutting through the field.

On the fifth lap Haslam overtook Sykes for second, and the manouver was repeated by Checa on the fading Kawasaki rider which further gave Laverty and advantage as Checa decided it was time to eliminate Haslam from his path and chase after the Aprilia, while Haslam suddenly found his hands full with a resurgent Guintoli.

Checa started to chase down Laverty as Guintoli grabbed third from Haslam as both Melandri and Davies picked off a seemingly suffering Sykes ended up battling with own team mate and Fabrizio. On lap 10 Guintoli ripped off the sponsors stickers off of Checa’s Panigale on the straight and began to chase down his Aprilia team mate, as Melandri started to catch the Alstare rider and overtook him, but with some difficulty as Checa was hard on the brakes, but on lap 13 drama hit.

Checa overshot his braking point at the Honda Hairpin clipping the back of Melandri’s BMW. Both riders went down heavily with the Spaniard getting the worse of it, laying eerily still, as Melandri rushed over to assist him. The Italian would later complain that the Checa was not handled well by trackside personnel. The Spaniard was transported to the medical centre and seems to not have suffered any injuries, but Dr. Corbascio resported that Checa will not be taking part in race 2 as he was knocked unconscious and didn’t remember the incident.

On lap 14 Guintoli cut Laverty’s advantage and began climbing all over his tail, but then simply powered past him and would retain the lead till the chequered flag.

With four laps to go Laverty found he had to defend himself from Fabrizio, who had already taken care of Haslam, Baz and Sykes. With two laps to go Fabrizio would get past Laverty, but the Irishman didn’t give up and responded on the final lap and the two were almost side-by-side across the finish line, but Laverty would clai, second by mere 0.007secs.

Chaz Davies finished fourth in his debut with BMW after starting 12th , while Sykes took 5th after falling to 8th with tire issues, and he was followed by his team mate Baz, Pata Honda’s Haslam and Rea. Camier ended up only 9th, while a bruised Neukirchner closed out the top ten.

2013 World Superbike Phillip Island Race 1 results:

01- Sylvain Guintoli – Aprilia Racing Team – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – 22 laps in 33’47.109
02- Eugene Laverty – Aprilia Racing Team – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 1.352
03- Michel Fabrizio – Red Devils Roma – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 1.359
04- Chaz Davies – BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team – BMW S1000RR HP4 – + 5.702
05- Tom Sykes – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 5.753
06- Loris Baz – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 6.769
07- Leon Haslam – Pata Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 6.830
08- Jonathan Rea – Pata Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 17.944
09- Leon Camier – FIXI Crescent Suzuki – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – + 19.152
10- Max Neukirchner – MR Racing – Ducati 1199 Panigale R – + 26.557
11- Jules Cluzel – FIXI Crescent Suzuki – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – + 30.305