Shinya Nakano was able to walk away from a high-speed accident during the second World Superbike race of the day at Donington Park, ending an otherwise strong weekend on a sour note.

Nakano had been enjoying his finest performance of the season on the Aprilia RSV-4, qualifying on the front row for the first time before running with the leaders in the early stages of the opening race. Although he would lose touch as the race wore on, sixth position marks one of his best results in World Superbikes.

Race two started in positive circumstances too, the experienced MotoGP rider classified third at the end of the opening lap, only to crash soon afterwards at the Old Haiprin.

Luckily, despite the severity of the accident, Nakano was unhurt, even if he was disappointed with his premature exit from a good position.

“The results of race one were good considering the problems we encountered during the warm-ups, and even though I lost a lot of ground at the beginning. Instead, I started off much better in race two and I realised that I would be able to keep up with the leaders, but during the second lap, I lost my rear tyre and flew into the air.

“Luckily I'm fine, even though I'm disappointed about how things ended up. On Wednesday we'll do the test runs at Brno which will help me improve my feeling and develop the RSV4 for the next round.”