WSB Phillip Island Curiosities

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The last time that two Ducatis managed to take first and second place in the qualifications was in Assen 2004, when Chili took pole with the 998 RS03 prepared by PSG-1, followed by Toseland and Laconi with the official Ducati Fila 999F04. Behind Bayliss and Lanzi, Andrew Pitt took third and with it his best career result. The Australian doubled this performance in race 1 where he took the first podium place of his career. Difficult comeback for Xaus, who recorded his worst qualifying performance with the 21st spot; Ruben had never gone past the 20th place, which he occupied only once in his debut race at Nurburgring, Germany in 1998.

Toseland took his sixth win in the SBK™ World Championship and his second win in the opening round. In the past winning the first race had been always a good sign of form, since in the last eighteen editions of the championships the winner of the first round for eleven times came out at the end of the year as the World Champion. In recent years this has happened since 2003 (Hodgson, then 2004 Toseland and 2005 Corser). The worst result in the World Championship ranking at the end of the year for a winner of the first race was a sixth place, obtained by Slight in 1992 when he won the first race and didn’t win any other races for the rest of the season.
Toseland finished his 100th race in race 2, entering the group of 18 riders who can boast at least 100 race finishes.

In race 1 James Toseland was in the lead only in the last lap, never having been in the lead during the rest of the race. During the last nine seasons it happened just five times that the winner of the race took over the lead only in the last lap. This is the list: in 2000 at Kyalami race 2 (Colin Edwards) and in Donington Park race 2 (Neil Hodgson), in 2001 at Sugo race 1 (Makoto Tamada), in 2004 at Misano race 2 (Chili) and in 2005 at Monza race 2 (Chris Vermeulen).

The 2001 World Champion has come back in style. The Aussie climbed the podium after an absence of four years (Imola 2002 race 2) and took the lead in the world championship for the first time since Assen 2002, the year that Edwards won. Troy took his eighth pole going at the eighth spot all time with Giancarlo Falappa, Scott Russell and Aaron Sligth. 48 times on the podium, which gives him the eighth spot all-time for podium places ahead of Fabrizio Pirovano (47).

In the 417 races for which the birth date of the riders on the podium is known, race 2 in Losail is the fifth for the highest average age recorded. The “oldest” podium is Malaysia 1992 race 1 run in Johor, where the three riders on the podium, Raymond Roche, Fabrizio Pirovano and Rob Phillis averaged 34 years, 10 months and 8 days. Race 2 in Losail saw Corser, Bayliss and Haga on the podium, for a combined average age of 34 years, 0 months and 12 days. Oddly enough, Corser is present also on the “youngest” podium in SBK™ history, when in race 2 in Laguna Seca 1995 he was alongside Anthony Gobert and Mike Hale for an average age of 22 years, 2 months and 16 days.

The current world champion introduced himself with an incredible pole position that leaves his team-mate at 0”996, the second biggest gap since 1998, behind the 1”027 that Muggeridge put between himself and Charpentier in Monza in 2004. The French rider thus obtained the twelfth pole of his career, becoming the second rider of all times together with Paolo Casoli and behind Muggeridge, who leads with fifteen poles. Sebastien has always recorded good performances starting from pole: 6 wins and 3 second places.

In motor sports this term is used to identify the rider who manages to score pole, win, register the fastest lap and stay in the lead for the entire race. This is the fourth time that Charpentier succeeds, the previous occurrences were: Spain 2005, Great Britain 2005 and Europe 2005. With his eighth win Sebastien reaches Stephane Chambon at the fourth place all-time. Muggeridge and Paolo Casoli lead the ranking, with eleven wins each. The 9th fastest lap of Charpentier is an absolute record in the history of the Supersport World Championship®, Charpentier leaves at 8 Jamie Witham, Iain Macpherson and Fabien Foret, who prior to Losail shared the leadership with him.

Thanks to Curtain’s third place in the Losail qualifications, Yamaha recorded his 100th presence on the front row of the starting position. Honda leads with 135.

Kenan Sofuoglu scored the first podium of his career and Turkey became the 12th country in the history of the Supersport World Championship® to conquer a podium place. Twenty-two and a half years of age, Kenan is the seventh youngest rider in history to climb the podium. The youngest is Chris Vermeulen, who in Monza 2002 finished second when he was only 19 years, 10 months and 23 days old. On the other side of the coin there’s Kevin Curtain who in Qatar established the new record for the oldest rider on the podium: 39 years, 9 months and 3 days.

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