World Superbike race results: Phillip Island

Photo: World SBK

The weekend’s racing in Phillip Island prove to be some of the most exciting we’ve seen in years, with a slight change in the frontrunners.

Although Kawasaki put up the usual strong performance (second for Sykes in the first race and Rea in the second race), Marco Melandri took his Ducati to the win in both events, proving he’s still fast, even if he’s out of MotoGP.

In Race 1, Chaz Davies took third for Ducati; Xavi Forres was third in Race 2, also onboard a Duc.

While both races were entertaining, the second was a real dandy, a flag-to-flag showdown; thanks to tire concerns (Yonny Hernandez had a massive tire failure in Race 1), racers were required to switch tires in the pits by end of the 12th lap. The battle came down to the last corner, Melandri just managing to slipstream past Rea out of the last corner for a photo finish.

In World Supersport, Yamaha dominated, going 1-2-3 (Lucas Mahias, Randy Krummenacher, Sandro Cortese).

For a full rundown of the weekend’s finishing orders and statistics, see the World Superbike site.

[Correction: This article originally said “switch machines” when in fact it was tires that were swapped. We watch too much MotoGP (also, it’s Monday)]