2006 Australian Superbike Championship (YMF Loan) - Round Four - Queensland Raceway

125 Race

Alvaro Bautista got a great run off the line to lead Pesek and Kallio around the first turns of Brno in front of a massive Czech crowd that had turned up to enjoy sunny skies and the sound of 44 two-stroke 125cc howlers screaming around the 5.4km circuit. 19 laps amounting to 102.65 kilometres of racing making those tiny little single cylinder engines work very hard indeed. And early indications suggested that the Aprilia men had the best engine for Brno as MVA Aspar teamsters Bautista and Pasini looked to be enjoying an advantage over Derbi mounted Lukas Pesek and KTM's Mika Kallio while Gabor Talmacsi was the best performing Honda man back in fifth place.

After three laps it looked as though Bautista and Pasini might escape but the next couple of laps saw Pesek, Kallio and Talmacsi close right onto the tail of the Aprilia men and then on lap six Kallio went through to the lead and the five-way battle for the lead started getting very crazy indeed.

Bautista soon hit the front again and managed to escape a little and as the laps counted down Pasini and Talmacsi failed to stay with the pace up front and drifted away from the lead pack. As the race entered its second half Bautista led by a full second from Kallio and Pesek who were having a great tussle over second place. Pesek made a small mistake on lap 14 which cost him some time and allowed Kallio plenty of breathing space. The KTM man then started to edge a little closer to race leader Bautista.

With two laps to run Kallio was all over the back of Bautista and it was on for young and old as they started the last lap. Meanwhile Pesek's Derbi must have developed some problem as he started to drift backwards.

Kallio nosed in front in the final turns but Bautista won the drag race to the line for the win while Talmacsi managed to put a Honda on the podium after his rear tyre clipped the front wheel of Pesek's Derbi which sent the Czech rider tumbling off into the kitty litter. That tumble put an end to Pesek's chance of becoming the first Czech rider to finish on the podium at his home GP since Bohumil Stasa took second place in the 350cc class way back in 1971. Before I was born and certainly a long time before Pesek was born!

Bautista's win set a new record in the 125cc class as the Spaniard became the first ever rider to finish in the top four at the first eleven races of the year.