Althea Ducati's Carlos Checa cruised to the first World Superbike race victory at Silverstone this lunchtime, wheelying across the line to finish three seconds ahead of Yamaha's Eugene Laverty with team-mate Marco Melandri in third.
But it was joy and heartbreak in equal measure for the rest of the British pack. Leon Haslam came home in fourth place to take his best result for many a race, the position handed to him by Leon Camier who looked certain for a podium until his Alitalia Aprilia gave up with three laps left to run.
It was more than Haslam could hope for and his pace would have been enough to take him past Melandri had there been enough laps left. Camier, meanwhile, had been catching Laverty and Checa by more than half a second per lap but put has hand up as his RSV4 failed. He rolled round to finish in 15th to take a point.
Checa, meanwhile, will have a double grin on his face as Max Biaggi could only finish in 11th place. The Italian, who is not a big fan of Silverstone, drops to 50 points behind his former MotoGP rival while Melandri can now sniff second place as he is only 12 points behind.
Laverty had led from the front, getting a terrific start to grab the holeshot as Hopkins settled in behind him. Checa was third and Haga fourth as Camier ran wide and ended up back behind his team-mate with a lot of work to do. Paint was swapped until Laverty made a break but Checa soon bridged it to take the lead with 12 laps to go.
Poleman and British Superbike front runner John Hopkins got off to a great start but faded back to fifth towards the end. His place was never in doubt, however, as Liberty Ducait's Sylvain Guintoli was a full ten second further back.
PBM Kawasaki's Joan Lascorz grabbed a bagful of points for sixth place while Maxine Berger, the second BMW of Troy Corser, and BMW Italia Ayrton Badovini rounded out the top ten. James Toseland got his first points of the year in 12th and Jon Kirkham got 14th. Alex Lowes crashed out as did Noriyuki Haga, who was in the fight for fifth place.
