Suzuki Riders the Big Winners: After leading pre-season testing and most of qualifying, Alstare Corona Extra Suzuki riders Tory Corser and Yukio Kagayama took a race win each, the first time Suzuki pilots have headed both podiums in World Superbike. With a second place and win to his credit, class new boy Kagayama leads the championship with an almost immaculate 45 points, from his team-mate Corser, who secured a win and a third place. Xerox Ducati rider Regis Laconi, with a third and a second place, earned third overall, with 36 points to Corser’s 41.

Race One: The return of the rains, which have uncharacteristically appeared in these past few days, cause the first race to be held in two parts. With ten laps completed, the rain brought out the red flags, to stop the contest on safety grounds. With the race one fight now determined on aggregate time, clear first section leader Troy Corser only had to keep a safe gap behind second section leader Yukio Kagayama to take the win. Kagayama was aggregate second, with Ducati rider, Regis Laconi, third.

Race Two: Top Three: In a dry race two, Kagayama and Corser had a tough race in the early laps, but as time wore on Kagayama extended a lead to finish ahead of Laconi by over two seconds. Corser, on a different choice of a harder rear Pirelli tyre than the other top runners, was third. A huge fight for fourth place, which featured eight riders at one stage, went the way of Honda rider Chris Vermeulen (Winston Ten Kate), making him the best Honda finisher on the first day of the new season.

Leading Lights: Yamaha Motor France IPONE runner and front row qualifier Sebastien Gimbert left the Losail circuit with the new lap record to his credit, 2”01.852. Being knocked off by another rider in race one, and experiencing a slipping clutch in race two, held his results down, however, to a solitary tenth. Top Yamaha riders thus proved to be Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia) in fourth place in race one and his team mate Noriyuki Haga, one place behind in the interrupted opener.

World Champion James Toseland (Xerox Ducati) had to fight hard for a pair of sixth places, experiencing many set-up problems on his machine. In race two he could not quite re-pass Pierfrancesco Chili (Klaffi Honda) for fifth place, and had his work cut out to fend off SBK new boy Norick Abe (Yamaha Motor France IPONE) and outstanding class debutant, Max Neukirchner (Klaffi Honda), who was to finish an eventual eighth after being fifth for long periods of the contest.

One Up: With a host of riders only taking one finish, due to a rash of crashes and some unexpected mechanical gremlins (Chili was a retirement on the warm up lap in race one, for example), the

championship table from ninth place features some riders many expected to shine after their qualifying showings. Jose Luis Cardoso (DFX Sterilgarda Yamaha) had an electrical contact problem stop his R1 on the warm up of race one, while a crash in race two, with another Yamaha rider, put him out of contention. A clash between Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda) and Chris Walker (PSG-1 Kawasaki) saw each man out of race two, underlining a harsh weekend for Muggeridge and robbing both he and Walker of a good finish. Wildcard Spaniard Ivan Silva Albertola (La Glisse Yamaha) had an engine problem which sidelined him from race two, after an excellent ride in race one, taking seventh place ahead of some big SBK talents. Ben Bostrom (Renegade Honda Koji) just missed out on a point in race one, and retired shortly before the start of race two, with a mechanical problem.

Supersport: Winston Ten Kate Honda riders Sebastien Charpentier and Katsuaki Fujiwara dominated the race, but in the most peculiar circumstances imaginable. Charpentier led the race by a seemingly safe distance but unable to conserve his front tyre he slowly increased his lap time, just as Fujiwara made seemingly impossible progress after stalling on the line. Michel Fabrizio (Italia Megabike Honda) was third, Kevin Curtain (Yamaha Motor Germany) fourth and the second Megabike runner, Fabien Foret fifth, also unable to conserve his front tyre.
Top Suzuki pilot was again Javier Fores in eighth, with Gianluca Nannelli (SC Caracchi 749R) best Ducati rider in ninth.

The second round of both championships takes place at Phillip Island, on April 3, but this race is preceded by an official SBK test at Valencia, Spain, on 12th and 13th March.