World SBK
Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike YZF-R1 rider Cal Crutchlow made it two in a row today at Silverstone, Round 10 of the 2010 World Superbike Championship, delivering the double win at his home race.
The British WSBK rider ended a flawless weekend´s riding with a masterful display of race craft. A good start from pole position in race one saw him quickly into second behind Johnny Rea.
Crutchlow then played the waiting game, comfortably following the Honda rider just 0.1 seconds behind until mid race before taking the lead. He surrendered briefly to Rea but then re-took quickly and pulled away to build a 1.6 second lead as he crossed the line to claim his maiden win of the championship.
Race two saw a repeat of the first with Crutchlow quickly settling in behind Rea, again maintaining a gap of just 0.1 to 0.2 seconds until just three laps from the end when he again pulled out to take the lead. The Yamaha YZF-R1´s incredible pace saw him take the fastest lap of the race on the penultimate lap, building a two second advantage as he crossed the line to deliver the long awaited double victory for Yamaha.
Teammate James Toseland made the most of his less than perfect grid position start in both of today´s two superbike races. The first saw him move as high as sixth whilst chasing down the Aprilias of Max Biaggi and Leon Camier before finally settling for eighth at the line. The second race saw an even more determined Toseland pushing on hard.
The British rider spent much of the race battling with Leon Haslam for fourth place having carved through the ranks and taken championship leader Biaggi mid race for fifth. The battle between the two Brits went to the chequered flag with Toseland less than four tenths behind Haslam across the line.
Cal Crutchlow´s incredible performance means he leaves Silverstone having jumped up from tenth to fifth in the rankings, now sitting on 188 points, 55 points behind Carlos Checa in third. Team mate James Toseland remains in sixth place, now on 179 points as they head to the Nurburgring at the beginning of September after the summer break.
Cal Crutchlow says: ˝We´ve been trying so hard all year to achieve a win, I´m ecstatic that it has happened at my home race. It´s been a tough weekend with all the Brits trying hard but we knew we had the pace. We were worried about tyre wear but it wasn´t too bad. It was a little bit cooler in the first race which helped our bike as well.”
“We now need to carry on and fight for the rest of the season. It´s been a dream come true today, three Brits on the podium for both races is brilliant. The British fans have been fantastic, they came out today and gave us tremendous support all round the circuit, a brilliant day for me, a brilliant day for Yamaha, Sterilgarda and all our other sponsors. All credit to Johnny Rea he rode really well in both races but I was able to pick him off with a couple of laps to go.˝
James Toseland says: “Race one was ok, the set up we used wasn´t perfect but I made the most of it. We made a massive change from race one to race two, we switched to something closer to what Cal was using in the first race, it´s the first time we tried it and it really helped us. Hopefully we´ve found a good direction for the next race.”
“A big thanks to the team for the change between the races, it got me from where I was in the first to not too far off the podium in the second. Leon Haslam rode a great race and really covered his lines, I could have been more aggressive with him but I didn´t want to spoil his championship chances.˝
Massimo Meregalli (team manager) says: ˝This kind of feeling has been missing and finally I got it back today. Cal delivered a fantastic weekend, he proved that he was the fastest here in all the practices. He rode two really good races, I have to give my compliments to him, he rode perfectly.”
“These results come thanks to all the efforts the team have put in over the last few months. James also proved he was fast and on the pace, the crash yesterday was unfortunate and mean that he couldn’t do the last Superpole heat and so had a less than perfect start. He had some problems in the first with the balance of the bike but was much better in the second. We came here with big expectations and finally we have some good results.˝
