Shoei rider Toni Elias’ run of wins, which stretched to four before this weekend, came to an end yesterday (September 20) at the twelfth round of seventeen for the Moto2 class. 
The Spaniard crossed the line in fourth place – a result that is below his expectations but nevertheless good for his championship aspirations. Yesterday’s crash affected his grid position and after making a bad start, which saw him relegated back to 16th position on the opening lap, he gave the home fans plenty to cheer about with a rousing charge through the field. Michele Pirro made an impressive debut in the category, picking up points despite the pain caused by a wrist injury.
Toni Elias (4th) “We’re really happy because even though we finished fourth it feels like a win. Obviously I would have preferred it to be an actual win here at Aragon but we lost a lot of time yesterday because of the crash and there was an incident in the first corner of the race, which I managed to avoid but it dropped me back to 16th. I made up positions with every lap and with two to go I caught up with Talmacsi and Simon but couldn’t pass them. Anyway, as I said, fourth place is important for the championship because we didn’t lose too many points to our rivals. ”
The three-round showdown that will decide who will be this year’s British Superbike champion kicked off in style at Croft yesterday (September 12, 2010).
Of the six racers who are in contention to lift the ultimate prize in British circuit racing, three are using the new Shoei X-Spirit 2 to great effect.
Worx Suzuki’s Tommy Hill kicked off this most important part of the season in fine style with a win and a 2nd place, and leads the championship by 16 points over Relentless Suzuki’s Michael Laverty.
Tommy Hill: “I’m really happy with the first race, for once it was a race that went to plan. I was able to push on and feel comfortable. I was very comfortable in the second race, too. I was able to pull Michael (Laverty) in quite comfortably and I sat behind him for a few laps to see his strengths. Then I passed him as planned – only when I wound the wick up he went with me! It was a good race and in the end he was able to do what i had done in the first race, to get in front and to protect his line.
“So I can’t be 100% happy, but I’m in the best position of anybody in the championship so I’m not complaining. Michael was great today and he’s shown this is no three-horse race as it’s been called, all the guys in the top-six are there for a reason. Bring on Silverstone!”
Croft wasn’t so fortunate to Michael Rutter on the Ridersmotorcycles.com Ducati and two-time former BSB champion, Ryuichi Kiyonari on the HM Plant Honda. They struggled with various issues but scored strongly in the second of the day’s races.
The championship continues at Silverstone on September 26.
MCE Insurance 2010 British Superbike Championship standings after Croft:
1. Tommy Hill (Shoei) 570
2. Michael Laverty 554
3. Ryuichi Kiyonari (Shoei) 543
4. Josh Brookes 542
5. Michael Rutter (Shoei) 521
6. Alastair Seeley 506
The Misano GP saw Shoei riders, Toni Elias (Moto2) and Marc Marquez (125GP), each take their sixth win of the season to strengthen their respective championship positions.
Elias (top), Marquez (below)
Overshadowed by the tragic death of Shoya Tomizawa following an incident in the Moto2 race, Toni Elias increased his lead to 83 points in the championship.
Despite starting from pole position, Gresini rider Elias had to battle hard to take his fourth win in succession. He eventually crossed the line 1.969s clear of reigning 125cc champion and now second in the standings, Julian Simon.
In the 125cc class, Shoei rider, Marc Márquez took his sixth win of the season after a hard fought race.
The Red Bull Ajo Motorsport rider extended his 125cc Championship lead to nine points over Nico Terol by leading his title rival across the line.
There are six remaining rounds of the 2010 MotoGP season.
Shoei World Superbike rider, Leon Camier, broke his wrist and required stitches to a knee wound following a crash on his Aprilia on Saturday (September 4) afternoon while participating in the German World Superbike round.
Shoei rider Leon Camier in action
The incident, the cause of which is being investigated by the Aprilia team, occurred during qualifying practice for the German World Superbike round.
Leon has returned to England to begin the first stage of recovering from his broken scaphoid and is not yet known if he will miss the remainder of the season.
On his website, www.leon-camier.net, the reigning British Superbike Champion said: “I would like to thank everyone who has sent in messages to wish me luck and a speedy recovery. I’ll keep you all up to date on how things are going on my website!”
Shoei rider Tommy Hill jumps the Mountain
Shoei-supported rider, Tommy Hill, took a win and a second at Cadwell Park yesterday (August 30, 2010) to finish the first nine-round stage of the British Superbikes Championship with the lead on points.
In an exciting day’s racing Hill, riding his Suzuki GSX-R1000, was on top form and after dominating the first race was challenging for the lead again in the second race when it was red flagged (on the 14th lap). In the first race rival Josh Brookes had taken the early lead but succumbed to an attack from Hill on the eighth lap. Hill then maintained a constant 1:27-minute lap pace while his rivals withered, so as to take the win by a comfortable 5.116-seconds. In the second race Hill had led for 11 laps and was trailing Brookes by just 0.230-seconds after 13 laps when the race was stopped.
Hill’s point tally from the nine rounds amounts to 287 points, three more than Brookes and six more than Ryuichi Kiyonari. However, with the Showdown phase now beginning, the championship points tally taken so far is cast aside. The championship will now be decided over the final three rounds (seven races) between the six highest points scorers so far, known as the Title Fighters.
All the title fighters have their championship point tally put on an initial parity of 500, to which is added only the podium points they’ve scored thus far (podium points have been awarded as three for a win, two for second and one for third). On this basis Hill steps forward into the Showdown as joint leader with Kiyonari on 525 points apiece.
Tommy Hill said: “In all I feel overjoyed. We get to leave here having effectively won the first part of the season and having beaten the HM Plant team in their back yard – that’s kind of a bonus. But now it’s crunch time and to be going into this vital part of the season with a joint points lead is a great position to be in.”
Race replicas always get us a little exctited, so we thought we’d share with you some images of the freshly released Ben Bostrom helmet.
It’s only available in the USA and helmets across the pond have to comply to a different standard, but we thought you might want to have a look at it. The X-Spirit 2 is known as the X-Twelve over there.
Former World Superbike race winner, Ben, currently sits 4th in the American Superbike championship.
Norifumi Abe in his 1994 Japanese Grand Prix debut
Where does the time go? It was sixteen years ago that Norick Abe brought himself to the attention of race fans around the world with his gutsy wildcard ride at the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix.
OK, so he binned his Mister Yumcha Blue Fox Honda in spectacular style fighting for the lead, but the demonstration of sheer speed and ability to mix it with the best of the world set him up for a regular word championship ride. He also inspired a 14-year old Valentino Rossi to adopt the nickname of ‘Rossifumi’ for the early part of his career.
Check out this video from 1994