Full points were awarded as Yamaha's Chaz Davies took a clear win after Hannspree Ten Kate Honda's Florian Marino was knocked off in spectacular fashion by championship leader Luca Scassa, under braking, on lap eight. Marino had been vying for a podium, but an impressive charge to second from the injured Fabien Foret still gave the Dutch team reasons to cheer at their home race. He had been fourth on the grid.
Australian Broc Parkes put in the ride of the day after he was punted off the track in turn one and had to fight his way back from 13th, eventually crossing the line in a super impressive 3rd place.
"Finally! I think that sums up how long I have waited for today to come," Davies beamed after taking his first win. "It's often a case of luck and I feel it has rarely been on my side in the last few years and so far this season. The bike is doing really well. After yesterday's accident in qualifying, the team had to work really hard all night to rebuild the bike and I think I managed to repay them for it. I'm looking forward to Monza now that I am officially back in the hunt!"
For Hannspree Ten Kate Honda's Fabien Foret it was a top return after the French rider suffered from horrific hand injuries i the opening rounds.
"It was a tough day but I'm happy with 20 points, but we had some pretty bad tyre issues with about four or five laps to go," Foret explained. "I had to try to save the tyre and finish the race so I was lucky that there was a good gap to Broc Parkes in third. I had to ride really slowly just to finish the race but at the end of the day it turned into quite a good weekend. Between the tyre issue and the fact that I am still not quite 100%, it's good to get some points and I hope for Monza to be in really good shape to fight for a win," the Frenchman concluded.
Broc Parkes eventually took his second podium of the year and he is now only three points from the top, in second place overall, as points leader Scassa's crash.
"I was a little bit fortunate that some other riders went out but I was unlucky to be bumped wide in the first turn, so it was just luck coming back my way," Parkes said. "I am second in the championship and only three points from first, so it is like the season just started again. We have learned some things to take from this weekend to Monza and the team is always working on new things, so we can look forward to that. We improved the bike every day here and I had the pace so we scored a podium and got some good points again," the Kawasaki Motocard.com rider concluded.
