Donington World Superbikes: Troy Bayliss wins race one on aggregate

World Superbike championship leader Troy Bayliss has taken the win ahead of Tom Sykes in the first race at Donington Park on aggregate after the race was red flagged twice.

The first red flag came out after Noriyuki Haga’s Yamaha dumped oil round part of the Donington circuit. As a result, Troy Corser, Carlos Checa and Haga could not restart the race.

Ryuichi Kiyonari led the race from the beginning, but crashed out at the old hairpin to gift Bayliss the lead. Tom Sykes then overtook Bayliss to take the lead and stretched out a 3.9 second lead before the red flag came out. By this time Leon Haslam was up to third place.

The restart was to be a 14 lap race with the times from each half added together to determine the positions.

Sykes was leading on aggregate until a rain flag was shown, which both Sykes and Haslam mistook for a pace car flag and slowed down.

This gave Bayliss the oppurtunity to run away with the lead. Haslam was then taken out by Robbie Rolfo at the esses when Rolfo tried to move up to third.

When the second red flag came out there was some confusion as to who finished where, with Ruben Xaus turning up at parc ferme believing he finished third, but Max Biaggi took the third step on the podium.

Cal Crutchlow retired in the first half of the race due to a mechanical problem.