Xerox Ducati's Noriyuki Haga has taken the World Superbike race one win at Imola this morning and slashed Ben Spies' championship lead from 18 points to just six.
The Sterilgarda Yamaha man could only finish in fourth place with Aprilia's Max Biaggi in second and Haga's team-mate Michel Fabrizio third after Biaggi went underneath his fellow Roman at the fincal chicane on the last lap.
Biaggi led off the line with Fabrizio, Ten Kate Honda's Jonathan Rea, Haga and Spies in close attendance, and it wasn't long before the leading five had pulled a significant gap over BMW's Troy Corser in fifth place.
On lap two, Haga made a move past his team mate as Biaggi continued to lead while Stiggy Honda's Leon Haslam and Shane Byrne on the Sterilgarda Ducati began to hassle Corser for fifth. Reigning 250GP World Champion Marco Simoncelli was also in the hunt in his first ever WSB race.
On lap four, Rea outbraked himself into a downhill left-hander, ran across the gravel and tipped off, but managed to re-mount his Fireblade to eventually finish in seventh place. On the same lap, Haslam went past Corser for fifth place.
Lap five saw Fabrizio go back past his team-leader while the top three began to drop Spies as Simoncelli also went past Corser to put himself into sixth place. With 14 to go, Carlos Checa lost the front and couldn't re-start and the Fabrizio/Haga war continued, the Italian re-passing his team-mate for second.
Byrne crashed out of eighth place one lap later as Spies began to get the hammer down and reduce the two-second gap up to Haga. Simoncelli went underneath Haslam with 12 to go before losing the front at the same place as Byrne, but he walked away from the accident.
Haga finally made his move on Biaggi but the Italian was having none of it, and went back past, only for Haga to make the move stick into turn one with 11 laps to go as Spies got onto the rear wheel of Fabrizio.
The Japanese rider then began to put some serious air between himself and the chasing three. Fabrizio put a move on Biaggi over the start/finish straight going into the final lap, but the Aprilia man wasn't done, going back underneath the Ducati into the final chicane.
Haslam finished the race in sixth after being passed by Ryuichi Kiyonari into the last corner, while Tom Sykes crossed the line in ninth.
