Calculated move pays off for Eugene Laverty

A DECISIVE move with four laps remaining has given Northern Ireland's Eugene Laverty victory at Phillip Island yesterday.

A DECISIVE move with four laps remaining has given Northern Ireland's Eugene Laverty victory in the second World Superbike race at Phillip Island's season-opening round yesterday.

Aprilia's Laverty sat behind teammate Sylvain Guintoli, winner of the first race, for most of the race and even dropped back to third behind Marco Melandri (BMW) at one stage, before making his move and streaking ahead. He set a lap record of 1m 31.168sec a short time afterwards on the resurfaced track.

Guintoli finished 0.418sec behind Laverty after 22 laps, while Melandri - who crashed in race one after being taken out by Ducati's Carlos Checa, who was taken to hospital following the incident - completed the race in third. "Coming away from here with a first and second is fantastic, and I feel very happy and content," Guintoli said.

"Laverty and me are going to have a lot of fun this year. The bike has been working so well. We kept up the pace lap after lap and managed to get the tyres working for the whole race. The team is clever and the bike is clever - it doesn't need much more speed, really."

Michel Fabrizio finished fourth, with the top eight rounded out by Tom Sykes (Kawasaki), Davide Giugliano (Aprilia), rookie Jules Cluzel (Suzuki) and Jonathan Rea (Honda).

Australian pair Glenn Allerton (BMW) and Jamie Stauffer (Honda) were 12th and 13th respectively in race two.

Laverty and Guintoli lead the championship on 45 points apiece, ahead of Fabrizio (29), Sykes (22), and then Melandri and Rea (both 16 points).

The next round will be held in Aragon, Spain from April 12-14.

A total of 61,500 spectators attended this year's round over three days, during which the Victorian government committed to a three-year contract extension for the event until 2017.

AAP