Australian Round - Statistics
WorldSBK.com provides a quick round-up of the facts and figures from the opening round of the 2012 FIM Superbike World Championship at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Australia.
• third career pole for Tom Sykes, the same number as his compatriot Jonathan Rea. So far Sykes has never managed to win a race starting from pole. The Briton however in race two took a significant podium place: Kawasaki didn't manage a podium finish in a season opener in eleven years; the last one before Sykes was Gregorio Lavilla, third in race two in Valencia, 2001;
• tenth straight front row for Carlos Checa, the same sequence was recorded by Americans Doug Polen in 1991 and Ben Spies in 2009. Carlos needs seven more to reach the absolute record of Scott Russell (1993-1994);
• Max Biaggi's win in race one was a landmark one: he has reached Pierfrancesco Chili as the most successful Italian rider in Superbike, with seventeen wins; the couple now share the ninth all-time place. With this win Italy reaches 80 total wins in Superbike. Also the double podium finish brought Max another milestone, now he can count 61 podiums, becoming the ninth rider to reach 60 career podiums (leader is Corser with 130). Max has the same number of podium finishes as the aforementioned Chili and James Toseland;
• sixteenth career podium for Marco Melandri, but most of all the best race result for a BMW bike, second in race one. An amazing result, considering that, for the first time ever, Marco was starting outside the top-10 (thirteenth);
• fourth career podium for Sylvain Guintoli. His fall in race two put an end to a string of twelve top-10 finishes;
• Maxime Berger in race two equalled his best career result, seventh, scored in the closing weekend of last season in Algarve;
• in the Supersport class, Broc Parkes reached Karl Muggeridge in all-time second place for poles (15); at the top lies Sebastien Charpentier, with 22. It's the 50th front row start for Parkes, an absolute record he shares with Fabien Foret. In the race Broc scored his 30th podium;
• eighteenth win and 40th podium placement for Kenan Sofuoglu: he leads both all-time rankings by a huge margin.
Compiled by Michele Merlino
