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Monza post-race stastistics

Tuesday, 14 May 2013 15:49 GMT
Monza post-race stastistics

WorldSBK.com takes a quick look at the facts & figures that emerged from Round 4 of the eni FIM Superbike World Championship at Monza.


Maiden win on home soil for Marco Melandri: up to now the BMW rider had run eleven races on Italian tracks (including also Misano and Imola) but hadn't been able to climb on the highest step of the podium in his home country. This was also the first BMW win in Monza, at their eighth race here.


This was the eleventh Superbike win for Melandri, the same of Stephane Mertens, Regis Laconi and Ruben Xaus, at the eighteenth all-time spot. With the podium in race 2, now Marco counts 30 podiums (out of 50 races completed), the same of Giancarlo Falappa and Jonathan Rea (19th all-time). Melandri didn't record a double podium finish since the Russia races, back in august last year, when he was equally first and second and was able to take the championship lead;


Five seems to be a lucky number for Melandri: he scored his last 5 wins starting from the fifth grid spot.


Eugene Laverty continues to impress in Monza: five races and five podium finishes, with three wins among them. In the entire history of the World Championship only three riders were able to record a higher number of races with a 100% podium record in the same track: Max Biaggi, with six podiums out of six races run in Losail (the track of his winning Superbike debut, back in 2007), Stephane Mertens, same value in Brainerd and Colin Edwards, also with a six out of six in Oschersleben (five wins and a second place). Eugene for the first time in his career was able to nail three podium finishes: he adds to the Monza ones the win in race two in Assen.


After the second and third places in Monza, now Tom Sykes counts twenty podiums: for the first time he nails a string of five. He climbs on the podium since Aragon, race two. Tom is the first Kawasaki rider to score a double podium finish in Monza since Akira Yanagawa, who was twice third in the 2001 races.


For the first time this season Davide Giugliano was able to finish both races: he retired for a mechanical problem in Phillip Island in race 1, stopped with an empty tank in Aragon in race two and fell in Assen, Race 2.


Marco Melandri in race one recorded the new highest average race speed for a Superbike race: 201.814 km/h, beating the existing one, 201.330 km/h set by Troy Bayliss in 2000 in Hockenheim.


QUALIFYING


Tom Sykes is the first rider to post a pole at an average lap speed higher than 205 kph: his lap record, 1'41.223, equals to 205.459 kph, and beats the existing one, set by Biaggi in 2011, 1'41.745 (204.405 kph).


With his maiden Monza pole, Sykes now has set pole in ten different tracks: in the ones present in the 2013 calendar from last year, he didn't score pole only in Moscow (2nd), Nurburgring (2nd) and Silverstone (8th). The rider who scored the highest number of poles in different tracks is Troy Corser: he started first in 18 circuits. Bayliss (15) and Fogarty (13) are second and third in this ranking.


Tom Sykes started from the 20th time from the front row, reaching Michel Fabrizio at the 20th all-time spot: in 2012 and 2013 he missed on a front-row spot only twice: in Silverstone last year, eighth, and in Australia this year (fourth).


Sylvain Guintoli was back on the front row after a wait that started in August last year (Silverstone).