24. September 2012
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The situation was changing like the weather in the next-to-last round of the World Superbike Championship—the day was a disaster for the BMW team and a success for Aprilia. Biaggi is now first overall, and Melandri has slid down to third place.
In our last race report following the last round at the Nürburgring circuit, we wrote that the situation in the Superbike World Championship was close to the boiling point, but last Sunday’s race blew the lid right off the pot. At first the rainy race was cancelled after four racers took a fall, including the overall leader until that point, Marco Melandri. He was taken to the hospital in severe pain. No serious injuries were found, but Melandri had to miss two extremely important races. Sykes (Kawasaki) won the first race and the overall leader Max Biaggi (Aprilia) ended up in fourth place. This means Sykes has overtaken Melandri in the overall standings and he was now only 14.5 points behind the leading Biaggi.
Eugen Laverty (Aprilia) triumphed in the second race ahead of Rea (Honda) and his teammate Biaggi, who finally got to relax again thanks to his third-place finish and Sykes’ dropout. He’s racked up 347 points before the last round at the Magny-Cours circuit, followed by Sykes (316.5 points) and Melandri (308.5 points).
Everyone here at Akrapovič wishes Marco Melandri a speedy recovery because we’d like to see two bikes sporting our exhausts (Melandri’s BMW S 1000RR and Biaggi’s Aprilia RSV4) at the top of the podium at the end of the season.
After Portimão, we’re anticipating another championship title in the Superstock 1000 class, where Sylvain Barrier (BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet) placed second and thus took the overall lead. He’s only three points ahead of La Marr!
We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed like never before on 7 October, when the final races take place in France.
Photo: Aprilia Racing, BMW Motorrad Italia