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Baz goes into the World Superbike record books

Tuesday, 7 August 2012 11:04 GMT
In what can be described as a ‘historic victory', the 19 year-old from France Loris Baz scored a win in just his eleventh race in the top category, thus becoming the second youngest rider ever to do so. At the age of 19 years, 6 months and 4 days he is preceded only by Yuichi Takeda, the wild-card rider who won at Sugo in 1996 at 18 years, 8 months and 27 days of age. European Superstock 600 champion in 2008, and earlier this year a regular competitor in the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup, Baz took the Kawasaki ZX-10R to its second win of the season, showing exceptional control in the scarce grip conditions, and he followed that up with a second place in race 2 despite crashing just before the red flags came out.


"It is really special to win and to win in England because I raced here in BSB last year for a while. I would also like to thank Kawasaki for believing in me. We made no mistakes in race one and finished up front. I think in the dry we are also really fast and we can fight for the first five or seven places. I chose the slick tyre because it was the best choice in race one. The conditions in race one were crazy for a while and early on I was missing some grip but when I saw the rains coming I pushed hard even though it was quite wet but I stayed on the bike and I am really happy, as you can imagine, for this victory."


Determined to do the same in race 2, the youngster from Sallanches soon made his way to the front but once he had passed Guintoli in the lead he crashed out at the Complex. Luckily the red flags handed him back his second place, his third podium in the last four races. "The start of race two was not so wet so I just tried to keep my tyres, and then it started to move back up to Kuba and Sylvain, passed them both and them before falling, I think it was the right decision to take the race results back to lap eight because there was a lot of fuel on the track for two laps, and a lot of water. I am really happy and thanks to all my crew and Kawasaki again."


As well as thanking his team and Kawasaki, Baz also wished to dedicate the win to Joan Lascorz, the unlucky rider whom he replaced in the Kawasaki Racing Team following the Spaniard's Imola crash on April 2.