World Superbike
Sugo Michelin day 3 - Race day
Tamada dominant at Sugo Honda's wild card hot shot Makoto Tamada stuns the World Superbike regulars with a double victory at Sugo in Japan as wild card riders dominate round four of the series. Sugo heralds disappointment for World Champion Colin ...
Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM
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Tamada dominant at Sugo
Honda's wild card hot shot Makoto Tamada stuns the World Superbike regulars with a double victory at Sugo in Japan as wild card riders dominate round four of the series. Sugo heralds disappointment for World Champion Colin Edwards (Castrol Honda - Michelin) but the Texas Tornado vows to bounce back.
Makoto Tamada made a dream start to his OEworks rider racing career with victory on his debut aboard Honda 's VTR1000 SP-2 machine in round four of the World Superbike championship at Sugo in Japan on Sunday.
Cabin Honda team rider Tamada, 24, took five laps to grab the lead of the first race, easing away to an expected victory after his dominance in qualifying and Superpole. Troy Corser was a lonely second place finisher after Hitoyasu Izutsu dropped back at the halfway stage to guarantee third.
Shinichi Ito was forced to work his way through from a poor start to finish fourth, marginally ahead of another wild card rider, Akira Ryo (Suzuki).
Colin Edwards (Castrol Honda - Michelin) finished a disappointed 12th with his team-mate Tady Okada (Castrol Honda - Michelin) 20th after crashing on the 14th lap and remounting. Troy Bayliss (Ducati Infostrada - Michelin) finished 13th.
Tamada never looked beatable in race two, almost playing with the opposition as he took 16 laps before making his move ahead of Izutsu for the lead in the 25-lap encounter.
Izutsu - a World Superbike championship permanent entry this year - took second place with wild card Tamaki Serizawa third after retiring from the opening race.
Ben Bostrom (Ducati) led the race on the opening lap before crossing the line fourth with Neil Hodgson (Ducati) adding to his first race seventh place with fifth.
Okada got the better of team-mate Edwards with five laps to go to finish 12th with Edwards 13th and in determined mood for round five in two weeks time. He said:
"The weekend was going well, I put in a good time in this morning's warm-up and I was convinced I could be on the podium today. It 's over now and I 'm ready for Monza and to get my title challenge back on the rails."
Troy Bayliss finished 15th with his team-mate Ruben Xaus (Ducati Infostrada - Michelin) 22nd to add to his first race 18th.
Supersport
Former champion Paolo Casoli won round three of the World Supersport championship as he nearest rivals in the 25-lap race were forced out. Piergiorgio Bontempi crashed on the 13th lap, escaping injury, while chasing Casoli then James Whitham retired from third place a lap later.
That left Casoli to take a comfortable victory from reigning champion Jorg Teuchert with Andrew Pitt winning a seven-way fight for third place. Pere Riba 's fourth place was enough for him to take a three-point lead in the championship from Kevin Curtain (Honda BKM - Michelin Pilot) who finished sixth in the Japanese race.
Chris Vermeulen (Castrol Honda - Michelin Pilot) put in a spirited display to take 14th place and his first points of the year after starting the race from 21st place on the Sugo grid.
-Michelin
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