Superbikes at Donnington

Race1: Melandri makes history with first BMW SBK race win

A truly historic 1-2 for the BMW Motorrad Motorsport Team saw Marco Melandri win a 23-lap opening race at Donington with his team-mate Leon Haslam only 0.728 seconds behind.

An eventual five rider fight for the podium places provided overtaking manoeuvres and personal duels aplenty as the race order changed multiple times. Tissot-Superpole winner Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) won a tense battle to go third, with Jonathan Rea (Honda World Superbike Team) making up places in the final laps to overhaul Max Biaggi (Aprilia Racing) and take fourth place. The leading five were covered by 2.102 seconds at the end of the race.

World Champion Carlos Checa (Althea Racing Ducati) was sixth, four seconds from the win. He made it five different manufacturers in the top six at the flag.

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Race2: Incredible drama as Reawins and other top riders go out

Jonathan Rea (Honda World Superbike Team) took his second race win of the season after an incident-strewn race at Donington. On the first corner Carlos Checa (Althea Racing Ducati) and Eugene Laverty (Aprilia Racing Team) touched and Checa went down, taking out Jakub Smrz (Liberty Racing Team Effenbert Ducati) and Checa's team-mate Davide Giugliano.

Then Laverty crashed down Craner Curves, as up front eventual third place man Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) led for most of the race distance. He was finally mugged by a warring faction which included eventual second place man Max Biaggi (Aprilia Racing Team) and both BMW Motorrad Motorsport Riders, Leon Haslam and Marco Melandri.

After a multitude of overtakes and riders running off track on occasion, Haslam looked to have it won until both he and Melandri ran wide at the very last corner and Rea pushed inside. They collided and Haslam fell, knocking off Melandri as he slid on the track. Rea held on to win by just over half a second from Biaggi, with Sykes two second back. Leon Camier (Fixi Crescent Suzuki) was an impressive fourth.

In the Championship, the final dramas mean that Biaggi has 128.5 points, Sykes 123.5, Rea 108, Checa 105.5 and Melandri 97.5.

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SuperSport:  Lowes wins his first and sends British crowd wild

In winning his first ever WSS race British rider Sam Lowes (Bogdanka PTR Honda) became the fifth different winner in five races this season and the third in a row on a Honda machine. Having struggled on with a stomach bug of some kind since Friday, and suffering a serious finger injury in a fall on Saturday, Lowes had to work hard to resist a late push from eventual second place finisher, Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki DeltaFin Lorenzini).

The English rider came within 0.003 seconds of setting a new lap record in his efforts to keep the Turkish rider behind him on the penultimate lap. Lowes is now only six points from Sofuoglu in the championship. Third place today was taken by third ranked rider overall, Jules Cluzel (PTR Honda)

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