With three rounds and therefore six individual points scoring races left to run in the Corona Extra Superbike World championship, an overall season strategy can be put aside by the top contenders. For long-time championship leader
James Toseland riding for Hannspree Ten Kate Honda, all he needs to do is keep racking up points and podiums to maintain or increase his impressive 66-point championship lead.
For the rest of the top five - the only riders still in with even an arithmetical chance of the championship win itself - have to make up Toseland's advantage, without worrying about the progress of any other rider. This simplification of the rules of engagement should heighten, not reduce the ferocity of the front running competition, which recommences after a month's lay-off since round ten at
Brands Hatch.
At that event Toseland scored a double win, his first in World Superbike, but his rivals will be hoping that a change to the flat, featureless and generally tight EuroSpeedway Lausitz circuit will allow them to get back into closer company with Honda's top rider.
Noriyuki Haga on the Yamaha Motor Italia, Max Biaggi riding for Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra,
Troy Bayliss aboard the Ducati Xerox and
Troy Corser on the second Yamaha Motor Italia, comprise the chasing section of the top five quartet, and testimony to how accessible World Superbike has become since the advent of single make control tyres comes from that fact that there are four different makes of machine in the top four places - Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Ducati.
Of the top four chasing riders, Corser, some 128 points behind Toseland, has only a marginal chance of overhauling the Englishman, but almost as worryingly for the rest, no rider with the kind of lead Toseland has at this stage has ever surrendered it in the previous 19 years of World Superbike competition.
