Bayliss breaks Donnington duck

Eurosport - Sun, 07 Sep 17:19:00 2008

Troy Bayliss closed in on his third World Superbike title after breaking his Donington duck on a chaotic day of racing.

The 39-year-old is retiring at the end of the season and capped his last competitive visit to Britain by finally winning at the Leicestershire circuit in difficult conditions.

Bayliss first raced at Donington in 1998 but had never won there after a series of nightmares - including losing his little finger in a crash last season.

Xerox Ducati rider Bayliss took race one on aggregate from British wildcard rider Tom Sykes, after the race was twice stopped, before reverting to type and crashing out of race two.

The Australian is now 101 points ahead of fellow countryman Troy Corser with just 200 points up for grabs.

This week's horrendous weather had meant the riders had not been on the circuit in the dry all weekend but the field were greeted with a drying track at the start of race one.

Former British Superbike champion Ryuichi Kiyonari won the double last time out at Brands Hatch and made a great start to race one to lead Bayliss.

But the Japanese rider crashed out on just the second lap leaving Sykes to pressure - and pass - Bayliss.

The tricky conditions then saw a host of top riders crash out including Max Neukirchner, Carlos Checa and Corser all at the same corner before the race was red flagged on lap 10.

A lengthy delay followed as those riders allowed to restart made their way back to the pits before the racing got back under way.

Sykes held a near four-second lead at the restart but Bayliss soon passed the Huddersfield-born rider and set about chasing down the aggregate lead.

The veteran reeled off a series of fast laps to regain the lead before the rain returned to bring a second red flag and give him his 49th Superbike win.

Sterilgarda Ducati rider Max Biaggi was credited with third place after team-mate Ruben Xaus crashed out on the last lap.

The second race started in an absolute deluge of rain with Corser protesting the conditions were unraceable.

Kiyonari again got a good start though and broke away from Bayliss with Corser in third place ahead of two British wildcard riders in Cal Crutchlow and Leon Haslam.

HM Plant Honda rider Crutchlow eventually passed Corser to put himself into a podium position as the rain eased up.

Bayliss then crashed at high speed with 12 laps to go and despite picking the bike up and returning to the track retired a lap later.

Kiyonari held on to win from Crutchlow with Corser in third.

Crutchlow said: "The conditions were terrible but it's fantastic to get this result.

"Myself and the team have put in a lot of work for this round and we had a problem in race one.

"But they fixed up the bike for race two and to get on the podium in those conditions is a great result."