Today's victories see him equal multiple World Superbike champion Carl Fogarty's tally of thirteen wins in one season, the second highest and closing on the all-time season record of seventeen wins in one season, held by American Doug Polen on his way to winning the 1991 World Championship.

More importantly for Bayliss is that he now leads the Superbike World Championship with a total of 360 points, forty-nine clear of arch rival Colin Edwards, who finished second to Bayliss in both 25-lap races today.

The double race victory, his sixth of the season, capped off another dominant weekend for the Infostrada Ducati rider. He secured his fourth pole position of the year, by shattering the lap record by almost two seconds, before setting a new Superbike lap record on lap two of the opening race with a time of 1-min 34.913-secs around the 4.060km circuit.

With temperatures rising to the mid thirties with the track temperature rising to above 50ºC, Bayliss battled with Edwards in the opening laps of the first race before taking the race lead on lap ten with a slipstreaming move down the fast back straight. Once in the race lead he slowly worked away at building a buffer over Edwards and at the conclusion of 25-laps was 2.906 seconds clear of the American, with Britain's Neil Hodgson third aboard his HM Plant Ducati.

Race two saw Bayliss trailing Hodgson and Edwards in the opening laps before passing first, Hodgson on lap six and then Edwards a lap later to take the race lead momentarily. He ran wide at the end of the fast back straight allowing Edwards to regain the race lead. The pair began to battle closely until lap 18 when Bayliss took the race lead and applied the pressure once more and eased away to his second win of the day by 3.329 seconds from Edwards. Japan's Noriyuki Haga (Playstation2 Aprilia) took third ahead of Hodgson, with Ben Bostrom (L&M Ducati) making it a pair of fifths for the day.

"Everything worked out perfect today, it was a really good result and it's always great to win in Italy especially in front of so many fans," said Bayliss. "The conditions here have also made it a very hard weekend for us. With the temperature so high, it's not to be caught behind others out on the track as the fumes and heat from the exhausts make it quite difficult to breathe. You can stay behind someone for a little while but not too long."

"There was a bit of a problem on the start line of the first race when the bike wouldn't start, but the Infostrada Ducati team is working so well that my other bike was ready in pit lane with the exact same settings as I had on the other bike and I barely felt the difference once the race started. For me the second race was a lot more interesting. Colin was trying very hard in the early laps to break away and I was back in third behind him and Neil Hodgson. The fumes and the heat started to get to me as I followed them, so I pushed harder to get by and it was better out in front. I used the same tyre as I did in the first race, but had to work harder as the track was about 10ºC hotter made things a bit more slippery. We also had the bike set up slightly different than normal with a shorter wheelbase so that it would steer quicker. The only problem with that was that the rear of the bike was snapping around a lot more than usual, but it was OK."

The Superbike World Championship has a three-week break before taking to the Laguna Seca Raceway in California for round nine of the championship on July 13 - 14.