The Roman Emperor impressed everyone with his podium finish first time out at Brands, “This place is special and it is almost impossible! When I first ride here I think it is unbelievable, it is up and down, bumps, off camber, blind corners…it is the most difficult track I have ever raced. I'm looking forward to race two as it is more practice, more laps, more confidence and more chance. Well done to James and Troy it was a good race, I'm very happy with my podium.”
The race got off to a dramatic start as
Troy Bayliss surged forward in what looked like a jump start. He took the lead initially but Toseland wanted it and muscled by at the start of lap three. Once Bayliss dropped to second place it was
Noriyuki Haga who pounced on him. Swapping places four times in as many corners, Haga did bump him wide and had to wave an apology to him as he pushed him back to third place. Haga's team-mate Corser decided to follow his lead and took his fellow country man for third place.
Just as Bayliss was trying to regain the lost places he tucked the front at Druids. As it turned out it was the “jump start” that was on his mind, “I was looking for the flag to come in every lap, I just wasn't focused in the early laps. I pushed too hard and lost the front at Druids,” he said.
Toseland put his head down and started to pull a bit of a gap over Haga while further down the field it was Xaus and Kagayama who were fighting it out. On lap ten Xaus missed a gear and this allowed both Kagayama and his team-mate Biaggi to pass him. Using the momentum from this move Biaggi went on to steal fourth place from Kagayama.
At the front it was Toseland from Haga, then Corser with Biaggi chasing. This was all to change on lap sixteen when Haga had a big slide out of Surtees and ran off the track. He did rejoin and finished the race in seventh place. This incident put Biaggi onto the podium. Kagayama was going his best to catch his team-mate when he crashed out at Clearways. That was the podium settled.
