Although he was left to rue two poor starts that ultimately prevented him from challenging for victory,
Michel Fabrizio nonetheless caused a few raised eyebrows with his ride to two third place finishes at Miller Motorsports Park.
Looking to save face for the Ducati Xerox team saw
Troy Bayliss fail to score in both races, Fabrizio twice had to recover from poor starts from fourth on the grid, the Italian ending the first lap of the opening race down in 14th position.
However, some scintillating laps mid-way through the race allowed him to make stern progress up the order to the point that he was harassing erstwhile race leader Max Neukirchner for third towards the end. Clearly on a relentless charge, Fabrizio made his move on lap 18 to secure only his third podium of the season.
With that in mind, Fabrizio had hoped he would be able to challenge for race two glory from the front row, but again suffered a poor start that dropped him to 12th. Nonetheless, he fought back again with a run of excellent laps to claim back fourth, before rising to third when
Troy Corser retired in the latter stages of the race.
Despite missing out on the chance of victory, Fabrizio was nonetheless thrilled with his best combined result of the season, one that moves him up to eighth in the overall standings.
"Obviously I am extremely happy with today's results. In race one I had a gear problem on the start-line which caused a race restart but thanks to the great work of my team I was able to start without incident. On the first lap I went right down to fourteenth position but worked my way up the field, stayed calm and was very satisfied to take third.
“In race two I again had to make up a lot of positions and although I'm happy with third, I was hoping to be able to give Carlos more of a run for his money. It was hard work today, the heat and altitude here makes it a really physical challenge, and the last laps of both races were a struggle."
