Ducati Corse

Troy Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada) rode through the pain barrier in the European round of the World Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch in front of a record-breaking 126,000 fans to take a third and second in the two races, in which Colin Edwards (Honda) picked up a brace of wins. Neil Hodgson (HM Plant Ducati) finished ahead of Troy in race 1 but the Australian pulled out all the stops in the second race to keep his former British Superbike team-mate at bay and finish runner-up. Ruben Xaus (Ducati Infostrada) was fifth and sixth despite suffering total physical exhaustion, while Ben Bostrom (Ducati L&M) held off Haga (Aprilia), Chili (Ducati NCR) and Xaus in race 2 to finish a fighting fourth. Edwards’ two wins today move the Texan up to within 39 points of Bayliss with three rounds left in this year’s championship.

Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada), who was given painkillers to see him through the day, kept Edwards and Hodgson in sight in race 1 but eventually settled for third. “I don’t want to carry on about how sore I am but both Colin and Neil rode a good race. I’d rather be first but that’s racing and you’ve got to take the good with the bad. Everything was going well until I knew I couldn’t do any better but there was no use banging my head against the wall for a better result”. In race 2 Troy managed to get the better of Hodgson after a race-long battle to finish in second place. “We made a few little changes to the bike that maybe made it a tenth-of-a-second better a lap, but I really felt much better and tried harder in that second race. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed this weekend, I was really sore at Laguna and I’m really sore here. I had that crash on Saturday and didn’t think I was going to do any good here but now I can have a month off and get fit again for the last three races”.

Xaus (Ducati Infostrada) was involved in a terrific scrap with Haga in race 1, in which he was fifth, and in the second race he again found himself battling with the Japanese rider, who finished ahead of him. “It was a big problem starting 12th today. Although I had a good fight with Haga, my lap times were not so good and that’s why I’m not happy. On the last lap he closed the door real bad and slowed three or four times, but we came across the dip at the final corner and I got in his slipstream and bumped into him with my front tyre. After the second race I felt physically dead, I just couldn’t breathe out there and my heart rate was really high after the flu’ all weekend. If I could have kept the gap, I would have finished fourth easily. Just five more laps and that would have been it, but I was so exhausted. I just let those guys pass but they were faster than me in the first half of the circuit and then I caught up with them around the back so I couldn’t really do anything. I tried to pass Haga again on the last lap but he knew where to go and for sure I would have crashed”.

Bostrom (Ducati L&M) was unable to get past Walker (Kawasaki) in race 1 but then took Walker, Rutter, Haga, Chili and Xaus in quick succession in the second race to finish a superb fourth. “The guys dropped the back of the bike a bit for the second race and stiffened the front so when we flicked it in on the entry it wouldn’t step out as much, but the biggest change was switching bikes, and the engine and the set-up just felt a whole lot better. I let myself down in the first few laps and was just being dragged along. Then I just went for it, those guys were just so hard to pass and when I did get past they were right on my exhausts just pushing me and I really had to work hard to finish in fourth place”.

HM Plant Ducati GSE

HM Plant Ducati rider Neil Hodgson capped off a tremendous weekend at Brands Hatch by stepping onto the podium for the second time in one day. Colin Edwards may have taken the victory, but Britain’s number one Superbike rider did not disappoint the 122,000-strong crowd and rocketed to a third-placed finish, only narrowly missing out on second place after a furious struggle with Troy Bayliss. Hodgson’s team-mate James Toseland was the victim of a lurid front-end slide that ended his race prematurely on the 14th lap.

Race two once more showcased Hodgson’s silky skills and perfect technique as he flowed around the 4.2-mile Grand Prix circuit at speeds of up to almost 270kph. It was clear to the army of orange-clad HM Plant Ducati fans that the Burnley-born rider was wringing every last ounce performance from his year-old factory machinery and they responded with an incredibly vociferous show of support. Despite riding on the very limit, Hodgson was unable to keep up with Edwards, although reigning World Champion Troy Bayliss got a real run for his money as the two Ducatis went fairing-to-fairing for the majority of the race.

“I really wanted to win at Brands,” says Hodgson. “I tried every trick in the book but unfortunately it just wasn’t to be. That said, getting on the podium twice in one day is nothing to complain about, especially considering how well Colin and Troy are riding at the moment. It’s been a tremendous weekend and I’m walking away from it with two trophies, a safe third place in the Superbike World Championship and the fastest ever lap around Brands Hatch. This has always been a special round for us, but the support that we’ve had this year has been incredible and I’d like to thank everyone for getting behind me and helping make this my best weekend of the year so far.”


James Toseland’s departure from the race came as a blow to the 21-year-old rising star. The gritty Yorkshireman had been determined to impress at his home round but circumstances conspired to prevent him from tapping into his boundless potential.

“I’m disappointed with the way things worked out,” admits Toseland. “There were a lot of people in #52 t-shirts out there today and I wanted to do it for them as much as for myself. The front had been a little vague all weekend and it just went away from me at Clearways – I tried to prop it up but I ran out of track and that was that. It was just one of those things and I’m not going to let it get me down. It looks like I’ve got a bit of a scrap on my hands now to hang on to seventh place in the championship, but it’s nothing that I can’t handle.”