BMW satellite team members Michel Fabrizio and Ayrton Badovini have won second and third place in the first race of the British round of the Superbike World Championship. Melandri reduced his lag behind Biaggi to only 10.5 points.

The superbike races at the Silverstone Circuit are excellent proof of how equal the racers really are: in the first moto, second and third place were won by racers that had held eleventh and fourteenth places overall after the last race in Brno. Michel  Fabrizio and Ayrton Badovini, both members of the BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet team, started off in fifteenth and eighteenth place, but then despite appalling conditions managed to break through and catch the leading Loris Baz (Kawasaki), passing the checkered flag on BMW S1000RRs sporting Akrapovič exhaust systems in second and third.

“Today was a very good one, and it’s a big reward after some tough times. A huge thanks goes to the team that’s always been working so well. I achieved this second place, which I think is well deserved, because I really wanted it and in the end I fought up to the checkered flag to get it,” commented Fabrizio after the race. He finished thirteenth in the second moto, which was halted several times due to a number of falls.

In both races, a great deal of attention was directed towards the strongest contenders for the world champion title at the moment, Max Biaggi (Aprilia) and Marco Melandri (BMW). After Biaggi dropped out of the first race, Melandri finished seventh behind his teammate Leon Haslam; he finished the second race in eighth, three places ahead of Biaggi. Four rounds before the end, the Italian riding the BMW reduced his lag behind his compatriot on an Aprilia to only 10.5 points.

Things are still going to be interesting! Next stop Moscow, where the next race takes place the last weekend in August.

Photo: BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet