After 131 starts, Chris Walker finally took his first ever World Superbike win with an astonishing last-to-first charge during a soaking wet race one at Assen on Sunday.
The PSG-1 Kawasaki rider was forced to start the 22-lap contest dead last - then was knocked wide and into the gravel at turn one (top picture) - before starting his daring fightback. While the likes of
Troy Bayliss,
Noriyuki Haga,
Troy Corser and
Yukio Kagayama were caught out by the slick conditions ahead of him, Walker looked like he was on rails as he confidently kept his ZX-10R on two wheels to eventually beat Yamaha's Andrew Pitt by five seconds, with Honda's
Michel Fabrizio third.
Walker's debut world championship victory marked Kawasaki's first WSBK win since a double success for Hitoyasu Izutsu at Sugo in 2000 and marked the Englishman's first podium appearance of the year. Walker's most recent Superbike victory prior to Assen was in the British Superbike Championship during the 2000 season.
"It's pretty special, you hear people say a million times 'it's not sunk in yet' after something like this, but it really hasn't," Chris told
Crash.net Radio at Assen. "Unfortunately I can't celebrate with Rachel - she's got an audition in London on Tuesday and had to leave - but Jonesy (Craig Jones) and Stuey Easton are staying, so we'll definitely have a beer tonight. It's fantastic. It's been a long, long time since I've won a Superbike race and it felt very special. I've been told that going from last to first has never been done in World Superbikes before so that's pretty special as well.
