By the time Sykes had realised his error, Haslam was also through, while Rolfo was back on both of their tails. The Althea Honda rider had produced a superb ride from towards the back of the grid, overtaking riders on nearly every revolution, while he even held the fastest lap at one time.
However, Rolfo was about to blot his copybook when he made a desperate move on Sykes into the chicane, one that saw him instead cut in front of second place Haslam and cause him to run wide. When Rolfo low-sided in his attempts to come to a stop, Haslam had nowhere to go but come off his bike. Rolfo was out on the spot, but while furious Haslam rejoined, he was now at the back of the field.
Sykes was back up to second place on the road, but remained in the lead on aggregate, albeit by less than a second. What followed would be some furious laps from both riders as they attempted to race each other, albeit several seconds apart on the road. Eventually, a string of fastest laps for Bayliss saw him snatch the lead from Sykes on lap 17, with six to go.
In reality, only three more laps would be completed before it began drizzling again, prompting both Bayliss and Sykes to raise their hands and the red flag to come out. However, the weather was not the reason for the stoppage, rather a crash for Xaus, which was seemingly caused by the rain.
Xaus had been a comfortable third when he slid off coming under Starkey's Bridge, but the fact he headed for the podium shows he wasn't shouldn't have lost the position. He wasn't the only one though as Vittorio Iannuzzo and Christian Zaiser both floundered in the worsening conditions.
With the results counted one lap previously, Bayliss won by 1.2secs from Sykes, who in turn had 27 seconds in hand over Biaggi, who rather looked rather bemused when he was told he was on the podium.
In all, just 14 riders made the finish line, meaning every single one that stayed upright scored a point.
It meant there was joy for Lavilla and Paul Bird Motorsport, who scored their best result of the season in fourth, while Kagayama took a fine fifth from 24th on the grid, ahead of Smrz and Nieto.
