The Ten Kate domination of 2005 has been completely unthreatened this year but Kevin Curtain has hinted that perhaps they might be on the way to getting Yamaha's R6 hooking up better after earning second place during qualifying.  They have yet to have threatened the Ten Kate men come race day but Kevin will be hoping to change their fortunes this weekend.

Another spanner in the Ten Kate works this weekend could not come from the Yamaha camp but from 20 year old British wildcard rider Craig Jones who is aboard another CBR600RR machine.  Jones has qualified extremely strongly just behind Curtain and also in front of Fabien Foret, Ducati's 749R mounted Gianluca Nannelli and Ten Kate man Katsuaki Fujiwara.

Local man Craig Jones scored the holeshot but Ten Kate's Sebastien Charpentier was through to the lead a couple of turns later and Curtain tried to get Jones into a tight right hander but Jones put his CBR600RR completely sideways at full lock complete with lean angle to hold him off but Curtain had the measure of him at the next turn to take that second position.  The wily Australian desperate to prevent Charpentier doing an escape act.

The wildcard Jones certainly does justice to the first four letters in that term, if he is not sideways on the way in he is sideways out and out of the tight left hander he actually lost the front and saved it off the knee to add even more excitement into the mix.  He's that exciting that we might have to adopt him as an honorary Australian.

Charpentier and Curtain sprinting away to the tune of four seconds and it looks as though it will be one of this pair that take the top step on the box as nobody else looks like getting close. The early threat from the privateer wildcard Jones has evaporated as he has been shuffled back to tenth place.

Still 20 laps to run and a freight train has formed behind third placed Fabien Foret with Fabrizio, Chambon and Fujiwara the carriages on that train.  Fujiwara then decoupled from the train after making a mistake which allowed Parkes and Nannelli to push him further down the field.

Lap after lap Curtain followed Charpentier virtually in the same wheel tracks with the gap telescoping in and out between a tenth and several tenths.

Fabrizio had been strong in the battle for third before losing drive either through a clutch, gearbox or chain failure as his engine was certainly still running.

Charpentier went on to take the win as in the end Curtain could not find the speed to challenge him but the pair made the rest of the field look positively silly today.  Foret takes the final step on the podium 18 seconds behind Curtain.