Another dreadful weekend for the Foggy Petronas squad with Steve Martin's machine expiring on the warm up lap and failing to make the race start. His seventh retirement from seven rounds...

The luck of the Australians didn't extend to those that actually made the start of the race either as Andrew Pitt and Troy Bayliss touched but things were looking fine until Laconi arrived on the scene and slid into the side of Bayliss which took both himself and Bayliss out of the race.

No such worries for Briton James Toseland however who continued to lead the field around the first lap ahead of Haga, Kagayama, Corser, Pitt and Lanzi.

Kagayama slipped past Haga on lap three while Andrew Pitt got the better of Troy Corser for fourth position.

A few laps Pitt promoted himself further up the order after getting the better of team-mate Noriyuki Haga early on lap eight of the 20 lap race.  Race leader James Toseland and Kagayama had managed to pull away from their pursuers a little while after a somewhat lacklustre opening few laps Troy Corser started to pick up speed and close on Haga. Things had not been going well for Alex Barros however and the Brazilian retired to pitlane complaining of major handling problems with the front end of his Fireblade.

Toseland and Kagayama continued to set the pace out front as the race passed the halfway mark while Pitt, Haga and Corser gave chase. Corser had still failed to threaten Haga for fourth and on lap 13 Haga decided to slot past Pitt to take third place but was still over two seconds behind the leading duo.

After following Toseland for 15 laps Yukio Kagayama decided it was his turn to lead the way with five laps to run.

Kagayama pulled away from Toseland with apparent ease, the wheels of his Suzuki GSX-R1000 were rarely pointing in the same direction but he was certainly making it look easy and in the space of two laps pulled out 1.5 seconds on Toseland. Another Suzuki man to come on stronger in the final laps was Troy Corser after getting the better of Andrew Pitt who then started to come under attack from Fabrizio. The Honda man then pushed Pitt further back to sixth position as the Australian was clearly struggling for grip in the latter stages of the race. No such dramas for Fabrizio though who streaked away from Pitt and quickly caught and passed Corser. He then started catching Noriyuki Haga and on the final lap was all over the Yamaha man and slotted up the inside of him late on the last lap to steal the final step on the podium after coming from seemingly nowhere in the final laps.

Kagayama took a strong win while James Toseland played it safe for second after realising he couldn't match the pace of Kagayama. Disaster for Andrew Pitt on the last lap however as he was forced to park his Yamaha against the fence after experiencing a mechanical failure.

Toseland's second place promoted him to second place in the championship at the expense of Noriyuki Haga but despite taking no points in that opening race Bayliss still holds on to a huge 77 point lead in the series.

----    Day 3    ----
SBK Race 1 - SS Race - SBK Race 2 - Reports - Aussies - Corser - Ducati - HRC - Yamaha - FPR - FG Sport - Suzuki - Pirelli - Brookes - Beowulf

----    Day 2    ----
SS FP2 - SBK QP2 - SS QP2 - SBK Superpole - Reports - Corser - Ducati - Ten Kate - Yamaha - FPR - FG Sport - Suzuki

----    Day 1    ----
SS FP1 - SBK FP1 - SS QP1 - SBK QP1 - Reports - Corser - Ducati - Ten Kate - Yamaha - FPR - Muggas - FG Sport

----    Previews    ----
Aussie - HRC - FPR - Ten Kate - Suzuki - FG Sport - Ducati - Yamaha
 

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