2012 WSBK Assen Race 1 Results

If you've been following qualifying at Assen, you'll notice that the weather has been central to everything. Set-up time lost to rain, bikes lost to lack of adhesion, everyone went into race one somewhat underprepared. This made for an exciting and brutal race.

Report:

The race started well for Tom Sykes, with him leading from the start, ahead of a pack of contenders. While Sykes made a break, he was eventually caught by Rea and Melandri with Melandri eventually settling in behind Sykes as Rea lost the rear, then the front and then slid the Honda on his knee, saving an almost certain crash, losing only a half dozen places. Haslam fought through the pack to join Melandri and Sykes at the front when the green Kawasaki started spitting out steam and water with a split water hose. Sykes slipped back through the pack as his bike betrayed him and he was eventually flagged off the track.

The pack settled to the two BMWs at the front ahead of the Effenbert bikes of Guintoli and Smrz and the Althea Ducati of Carlos Checa. The adverse conditions looked like they were finally suiting the BMWs, until the weather decided that it wasn't happy with the state of affairs and opened the skies. A large number of riders started crashing out on the left hander and the red flags came out. Race Direction made a very quick and effective decision to stop the race and their call was justified by hailstones lashing the track once the bikes were in.

With a decent handful of crashers, and the single bike rule rearing its head, garages were very busy rebuilding bikes and Smrz didn't even make the grid in time for the wet restart and had to start from the pit lane.

The 9-lap restart put Macro Melandri on pole and Sylvain Guintoli in 2nd. Smrz left the empty spot in 3rd while Leon Haslam took 4th. Checa, Davies, Badovini and Rea made up the 2nd row while Hopkins, Giugliano, Badovini and Rea filled the third row.

The restart was on a very wet track and, from the second row, Jonathan Rea got the holeshot, leading Leon Haslam and Ayrton Badovini. Haslam took the lead off Rea, causing Rea to push too hard and lose the rear, sliding off in the severe conditions. Leon Haslam then ran over a second a lap faster than everyone until he too crashed.

Carlos Checa, current world champion and title leader, took the lead, riding a clean and tentative race, until he had a slide at Strubben, letting Badovini take a surprising lead. As Guintoli claimed 2nd place off Checa, Badovini lost control of his bike, crashing out from BMWs potential first victory. Guintoli kept his cool long enough to take his first ever World Superbike victory, while Carlos Checa lost 2nd place to his hard-pushing team-mate Davide Giugliano, swapping places at the last chicane, as we have seen happen so often at Assen.