The first faller unfortunately was Craig Jones who crashed out at turn one on the very first lap. While he was falling
Troy Bayliss took the lead but was being hounded by the Alstare Corona Extra Suzuki pairing of
Troy Corser and
Yukio Kagayama. Frankie Chili continued the crashing on lap three, sliding off into the gravel. By lap four Corser was into the lead however that didn't last as Haga was on the move and he took the top spot.
Lap five saw Kurtis Roberts crash out and Baylis barge back into the lead. The first high level faller was Corser who crashed out at turn two on lap six leaving Haga and Bayliss to scrap for the lead.
Ruben Xaus who had been making good progress crashed on lap seven, but it was lap eight that saw a lot more action with Bayliss taking to the grass and Kagayama crashing out of third place. Bayliss saved it and rejoined to continue his fight with Haga. Further down the field James Toseland ran off track, he managed to rejoin and finish the race in tenth.
Haga now had a 6secs lead over Bayliss with Michel Fabrizio in third and Pitt up to fourth. Sebastien Gimbert bit the dust on lap nine and lap ten saw Bayliss on the grass again at the same place and then high side a few corners later. He did his utmost to restart but the bike had stalled so it was game over for the championship leader.
On lap eleven it was Muggeridge who was caught out by the weather sliding off but restarting. One lap later it was the turn of the race leader to crash, gifting the lead to Fabrizio. Pitt who was running second grabbed the lead but that was short lived as Walker was now on a charge and reeling both front runners in. Walker made his decisive move on lap fourteen and brought his race home from there. Out of twenty eight starters only fifteen finished the race.
WSBK race results (1) – Assen:
1. Chris Walker
2. Andrew Pitt
3.
Michel Fabrizio
4.
Fonsi Nieto
5. Norick Abe
6. Max Neukirchner
7.
Lorenzo Lanzi
8.
Roberto Rolfo
9.
Karl Muggeridge
10.
James Toseland
