Donington Park WSBK curiosities

This weekend Chilli and Fogarty will be at the Donington parade. © Foggy Racing. Donington Park is back on the WSBK calendar after five years absence. A total of 30 races have been run so far on the British track and the most successful rider is Carl Fogarty with 6 wins in front of Scott Russell with 5. The couple monopolised the scoreboard winning all the races from race 2 in 1992 to race 2 in 1995, then Fogarty added two more wins in race 2, 1997 and in race 1, 1999. The Fogarty-Russell duels at Donington are memorable: in 1993 the American took an astonishing double after a heavy fall in qualifying, while Fogarty said goodbye to his title hopes with a fall in race 2. In 1994 history repeated itself in the penultimate round of the championship as Russell took a double and gained 27 points on Carl, leaving Donington with only a 5 point disadvantage in the Championship table. This time however Fogarty managed to hold on to his 5 points, taking his first title in Phillip Island.

The 27th of May 2001 in Donington, Pierfrancesco Chili took victory for the last time on a 750 cc. machine, the Suzuki GSX-R 750. From that moment on, only 1000 cc. bikes won WSBK^TM races.

With the fourth and the third places in Australia Noriyuki Haga has finished 148 races in the points in his career. With another two points finishes he can become the sixth rider to score 150 finishes in the first fifteen. The others are: Troy Corser (214), Aaron Slight (207), Pierfrancesco Chili (191), Carl Fogarty (190) and Colin Edwards (161).

Suzuki is only two races short of becoming the fifth marque to count at least 400 race starts in the WSBK^TM Championship. These are the other historical makes: Ducati and Kawasaki 461 race starts (all the races of the Championship), Honda 456 and Yamaha 428. In 1995 Foggy scored his 25th win and 25th fastest lap. © Foggy Racing.

MILESTONES IN DONINGTON

• 1988: first race of the World Superbike Championship^TM. Roger Burnett sets pole position with a Honda, race 1 winner is Davide Tardozzi on a Bimota powered by Yamaha and race 2 winner is Marco Lucchinelli on a Ducati. The event is won on aggregated times by Lucchinelli;

• 1990: tenth win for Ducati in race 2 by Giancarlo Falappa; first fastest lap for Rob Phillis in race 1;

• 1992: Carl Fogarty leaves his first mark on the World Championship. He takes his first pole and first fastest lap in race 1, falling while in the lead and leaving the win to Raymond Roche. He fights back and in race 2 he takes the first of his 59 wins. At the moment the British rider holds the record for wins, fastest laps (48), podium places (109) and World Championships (4);

• 1993: first podium for Jamie Whitham in race 2;

• 1994: 100th race start for Jeffry de Vries and 150th presence for Stephane Mertens. First podium and first fastest lap for Troy Corser;

• 1995: 25th win and 25th fastest lap for Carl Fogarty. First podium for Pierfrancesco Chili;

• 1996: tenth podium for Anthony Gobert;

• 1997: first pole position for Neil Hodgson;

• 1999: 50th fastest lap for Honda set by Colin Edwards in race 2;

• 2000: first win for Neil Hodgson. Tenth fastest lap for Suzuki (Pierfrancesco Chili). First podium for Chris Walker;

• 2001 first pole position, first podium and first fastest lap for the late Steve Hislop;

GAPS - The narrowest and largest margins of the Superbike class recorded in Donington:

(FGSport)