June 29, 2009 - Kenny Pryde

Ben Spies claimed pole position and two wins at Donington WSB on his R1. Yamaha riders also won in Supersport and 600 superstock ... Scroll down for the full story

Ben Spies (Yamaha Italia) claimed pole position, fastest laps and two wins at Donington WSB on his Yamaha R1. He was supported by Yamaha wins in Supersport with Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha world race team) and 600 superstock with Marco Bussoloti (Yamaha Elan).
And considering that Fiat Yamaha duo Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo made mugs out of the rest of the grid in the Assen MotoGP race, finishing one-two way ahead of Casey Stoner's Ducati (and Colin Edwards was fourth on the Tech3 Yamaha!), Yamaha had a good weekend's racing.

Spies had been impressive all weekend at Donington, from first free practice to Saturday qualifying and Sunday's races. Few in the paddock doubted that Spies would win, assuming his bike's clutch held up and that he didn't crash.
And so it proved. Spies' race pace was too fast for everyone else and he cleared off in both races. Championship leader Nori Haga (Ducati) paid a heavy price for trying to match Spies, crashing at speed at the double apex right, getting tangled up in his Ducati and ending the day in hospital. Initially it was feared that Haga had suffered back injuries, but this appears to have been ruled out. The net result is that the WSB championship title race is once again wide open.

And in supersport, Cal Crutchlow - also blisteringly fast all weekend - set a new lap record, fastest race lap and won his race, consolodating his lead at the head of the championship. Crutchlow's lead increased further when his championship rival Parkalgar Honda's Eugene Laverty crashed out at the Melbourne loop on the opening lap, remounted in 26th place then charged through the field, passing to fromer world champions (Pitt and Foret) to finish an astonishing fifth.

In superstock 600, a tumultuous race saw Brit Gino Rea (Ten Kate George White Honda) miss out on a home win in a very close finish with Marco Bussoloti on a....Yamaha. Too bad the Yamaha R1 failed to make it a full house in the superstock 1000 race, won by Xavier Simeon (Xerox Ducati) ahead of Claudio Corti (Alstare Suzuki) and Maxime Berger (Ten Kate Honda).