Haga and Kagayama showed their awesome pace in the first encounter before the Yamaha man punted the Suzuki rider off into the bushes while the pair fought over the lead.  Briton James Toseland showed brilliant and consistent pace on the Ten Kate Fireblade to come from well behind to take the lead and win the opening encounter of 2006.  If he gets a good start in this second bout he will have things even easier and could be hard to beat.  Corser was also on the pace but was shunted out of the way by Toseland on his march forward while Bayliss took second place in the opening race after really having to wrestle his Ducati around the Losail International Circuit to match the pace of the four-cylinder men.

Again the Yamaha Italy pairing of Haga and Pitt led the field away in this second bout and this time around James Toseland had got a decent start and was running third ahead of Bayliss and Corser with Karl Muggeridge running sixth. Kagayama had got a shocker and was down in 12th position at the first split on the opening lap.

Corser got the better of Bayliss for 4th position as they started lap two. Lanzi was running a strong seventh place and Kagayama was still languishing well down the order before heading off into the gravel trap. Fabien Foret went out of the race again to signal a disastrous start to 2006 for the Frenchman.

With four laps down it was still a Yamaha 1-2 with Haga and Pitt leading the way from Toseland, Corser and Bayliss.

Corser took third from Toseland on the next lap and immediately pulled ground on the Ten Kate Honda man who was now being hounded closely by Troy Bayliss on the Ducati.

Corser was quickly challenging Pitt for second place and the two Australians were side by side drifting around some very fast turns, edge of the seat stuff for all armchair enthusiasts. Corser took second place from Pitt half a lap later and set his sights on race leader Noriyuki Haga.

Toseland not looking as comfortable in this race and he looked to be holding Bayliss up somewhat as the Ducati man was still trying to find an opportunity to make a safe pass. Toseland a master of protecting position.

Corser got the better of Haga six laps into the 18 lap race. 1.2 seconds covered the top five while Karl Muggeridge was the next best rider a further six seconds down on that leading five. Craig Jones went out of the race in the kitty litter but this time a much softer crash than what took him out of race one.

Four laps later and the top five were still fairly close and it would have been a safe man to predict the winner. Haga was having a bite back at Corser every now and then and things far from decided. Lanzi had moved his way past Muggeridge for sixth and following the Kate man in eighth and ninth respectively were Chili and Barros.  Not for long though as Chili ended his race in the kitty litter a lap later.

As the race entered the final one-third of proceedings Corser managed to pull a couple of bike lengths out on Haga while Bayliss had finally managed to find a way past Toseland and quickly pulled away and started working his way up to the back of Pitt's Yamaha.

Bayliss managed to squeeze past Pitt on the next lap but ran a little wide which allowed Pitt to simply sweep back through. Corser had a 1.1 second lead over Haga and Bayliss now had more than half a second on Toseland. A three way battle was being fought for seventh between Muggeridge, Barros and Neukirchner.

Troy Bayliss made a move stick on Pitt a lap later and then went one better to take second place from Haga. The order with a few laps still to run was Suzuki, Ducati, Yamaha, Yamaha, Honda. Corser now had a 1.4 second buffer out in front while Bayliss had managed to pull away from Haga and had a clear track to try and chase down Corser.

The Ducati man did exactly that and he quickly started reeling Corser in to set up a dogfight in the final laps. The Yamaha men not able to hack the pace and now out of the hunt for the win and about to come under attack from James Toseland.

With a couple of laps to run there was only a tenth separating Corser and Bayliss and the two lead protagonists had a buffer of more than two second over the next best pursuers, Haga, Toseland and Pitt.

Bayliss took the lead on the penultimate lap and held position for a few turns before Corser nosed the GSX-R into the lead once again.

The final lap saw Corser and Bayliss letting it all hang out in their big final efforts for maximum points, Pirellis being tortured at every turn, Bayliss takes the lead, Corser gets it back, Bayliss tucks in behind the Suzuki again and looking for another opportunity, Bayliss makes a brave move but runs deep and has to get out of the throttle and allows Corser back through and the Suzuki man storms to the line for the win.   Toseland came onto the straight side by side with Haga to try and score the final spot on the podium but failed by a single thousandth of a second in a thriller.

ROLL ON PHILLIP ISLAND - BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!