Troy Bayliss made up for his DNF in race one by winning race two of the ninth round of the Corona Extra Superbike World Championship at Assen by a convincing 9.342secs.
Joining him on the podium was fellow Aussie Andrew Pitt who took his second, second place of the weekend for his Yamaha Italia team. Third place went to
Fonsi Nieto on the PSG-1Kawasaki, making this his first time on the World Superbike podium.
“Assen has always been a rollercoaster ride for me. I stepped off at 210km/h earlier but I only chipped a nail! Easy sport this,” joked Bayliss, “The guys did a great job on my bike, it has all turned out well, and I'm leaving here having extended the championship lead. I dreamed of coming out of here with a one hundred point lead . I want to win both races at Lausitz, but as we've seen here today anything can happen and there have been a lot of unlucky people.”
Pitt, who is becoming a regular podium finisher had this to say, “For me after the sighting lap I saw it was one hundred percent dry and we had slicks front and rear and a good dry set up. The narrow dry line was only a problem on the first lap. I kept my times consistent, I've got a podium again so I'm happy. We had a good test at Lausitz and all things being equal we should go well there. We've been on the pace and the guys have worked hard to refine the bike, now it comes out of the truck and it works. I'm enjoying being here so onwards and upwards as they say.”
Assen has been a race day of firsts and Nieto was over the moon with his first podium in the Superbike class. “The bike is coming better as Kawasaki are working more. I was pushing and thinking of podium and also first win. A podium in the dry is good for us, I've had bad luck at Assen but now I have good luck. This is my first Superbike podium and it is perfect. Everybody was on slicks and the tyres were working better, but at the end of the race everyone was sliding.”
