2011 World Superbike Donington Insider

He may not have won the races, but Max Biaggi stole all the headlines at the Donington Park World Superbike round through his behavior on and off track over the weekend. The Alitalia Aprilia rider is usually the benchmark when it comes to consistency, but after dominating Friday qualifying it all went wrong for the Italian, who had two crashes at the same corner in the same second qualifying session. From then on it went from bad to worse with the Italian tangling with Marco Melandri and Noriyuki Haga in Superpole 2 before having an argument and giving Melandri a slap in pit lane – for which he got fined 3000 Euro.

His behavior certainly wasn’t in keeping with a dominant world champion, and it didn’t get any better on race day. His opening race was littered with uncharacteristic mistakes leaving him down in seventh, and then in Race 2 he jumped the start, ignored his pit board and flags telling him to come in for his ride-through penalty, and was subsequently black flagged. He left the British track soon after the second race having slipped from second to fourth in the championship standings.

At the other end of the scale fellow Italian, Marco Melandri, was the biggest winner of the weekend after he secured his first ever WSB race win. The Factory Yamaha Superbike rider started ninth on the grid and, after a slow start, fought his way past Biaggi and eventually onto the back wheel of British riders Leon Camier and Leon Haslam. At the very front Effenberg Ducati man, Jakub Smrz, was making the most of his soft tire gamble. The Czech rider was clearly relishing being out front on a clear track and riding smoothly enough for his soft rear Pirelli tire to keep working. But once Melandri passed Camier and Haslam, Smrz’s fate was inevitable as Melandri exploited the extra grip of the harder tire to overhaul the Ducati rider with two laps to go.

“It’s amazing,” Melandri said. “It was a very tough race. At the start I didn’t have very good grip. I pushed hard in the first few laps but everyone was doing the same and I could not get to the front. I think I was still in 10th but then some of the other guys started to slow down because of their tires so I just kept my rhythm. I took a long time to pass Camier and Haslam and after that I was free apart from Smrz. I put in my best lap of the weekend and fortunately for me he slowed down a little and I was able to win – it was an awesome race.”

If Race 1 was all about Melandri, Race 2 belonged to Carlos Checa with the Althea Ducati rider capitalizing on his pole position to win the race from the front. A major contributing factor to his win was the 10-degree increase in track temperature which allowed him to use the soft Pirelli tire on his Ducati, while the rest of his main rivals stuck with the harder spec Pirelli.

The battle for second place was an intense one with Aprilia rider, Leon Camier, shrugging off the effects of glandular fever to battle hard with Race 1 winner, Melandri, for the final two places on the podium. In the end Melandri won but it was still Camier’s first WSB podium since August of 2010. After thanking the team he heaped praise on his riding coach, Keith Code, who had been in his garage and watching trackside all weekend.

Haslam arrived at Donington believing he could get two podiums but had to settle for two fourth-place finishes. In Race 1 he was running third until two corners from the end before Checa attacked – relegating him to fourth. In Race 2 Haslam somehow survived a huge crash that literally threw him off the bike. He landed with both legs on one side of the bike as he came on to the back straight, but somehow managed to stay on, get back on track and recover from eighth to fourth place. His only injury from the highside was a cut on his throat where he smashed into the screen of his BMW.

It also turned out to be a bad weekend for crashes. Although there were thankfully no serious injuries, there was thousands of dollars-worth of damage. Because of the cold conditions and relatively few left-hand corners on the track, a lot of the crashes came at one of the fastest points of Craner Curves with Smrz, Guintoli and Laverty all having big crashes there.

In terms of new technology the biggest visible change was in the BMW garage with both Haslam and teammate, Troy Corser, reverting back to a completely standard rear swingarm. The stock swingarm was tested in Jerez two weeks ago and improved bump absorption and increase grip at maximum lean. 

Kawasaki also used a new slightly stiffer swingarm to good effect, although their end results didn’t really show the progress that had been made. In the first race Tom Sykes looked capable of challenging for a podium after having qualified on the front row, but he missed out on the chance following a crash at the re-profiled Esses part of the circuit.

It was also the first time out with the new onboard cameras that will be beamed to television audiences this year.

The next round of the championship takes place at Assen, and if 2010 is anything to go by it is firmly Jonathan Rea and Castrol Honda territory. Last year Rea dominated the entire weekend, but given the level of competition, it’s unlikely he will have it anywhere near as easy this year.