Troy Bayliss may have handed over his World Superbike Championship crown to
Colin Edwards - but it wasn't without a fight, with the WSBK fans treated to two extraordinary races at the Enzo & Dino
Ferrari Circuit in Imola.
In front of 97,000 spectators, the largest crowd ever for a motorcycle race in Italy, the Australian gave 110% in an attempt to overturn the one-point deficit to his Honda rival, but just missed out on both occasions.
The pair put on an awesome display of riding in both races, with heart-stopping passes around the fast Imola circuit and the results could have gone either way. Bayliss was closing rapidly on the American when red flags brought race 1 to a halt after Hodgson crashed on lap 11.
Bayliss won the restart by two-tenths of a second from the Texas Tornado, who picked up the aggregate victory by half-a-second, while race two saw the#1 Ducati set the outright Imola lap record of 1min 48.389secs.
"I really wanted to win the championship today," declared Troy with a wry smile. "I did everything right, and tried to slow Colin down in that second race but he also wanted to win and he knew what to do. I pulled a rabbit out of the hat in this morning's warm-up and got on the pace. The race was a real showdown, I did pretty good but it just wasn't enough. Whoever won today deserved it so congratulations to Colin!"
Bayliss, who will be leaving to race the brand-new factory Ducati Desmosedici in next year's
MotoGP championship, added that he had had three successful and enjoyable years with Ducati in World Superbike.
"Everyone seems to know what I'm doing next year, but all I want to say is that I've been in World Superbike for three years now, I've had a really good time and the atmosphere is very friendly. I'm sorry to be leaving it, and I will certainly miss it,” said the 2001 World Champion.
