Spies shows his class with victory in race 2

Watching Haga slice through the field in race 2 was truly awesome. One thing is for sure in this years WSB championships - it's a fat field. You gotta work super hard for your places after the first lap.

Haga is rising superbly. The 5 way mid race battle for the lead between Haga, Spies, Biaggi, Fabrizio and Haslam is quality and is the sort of action we are sadly unlikely to see in MotoGP this year. It's not fairing bashing, but its great to watch these different riders on different bikes trying to push each other and figure out ways past.

At the mid-point of the race, it looked liked Haga was well set for a double win. But the later stages seemed to favour the 4 cylinder bikes as the Ducati's clearly had less grip left that both Ben Spies and further back Leon Haslam, who came through for a brilliant podium finish. The tyres on the Honda and Yamaha looked in much better condition than Haga's in parc ferme - with Haga claiming after the race that his tyre was totally finished with 5 laps to go.

But the race win went to Ben Spies who timed his move past Haga perfectly and had enough left in the tank to break Haga in the final few laps.

This left the battle for the final podium place to be sorted out in the final 2 laps. By this point Haslam and Laconi had caught Biaggi and Fabrizio. Laconi's late arrival and aggressive moves caught out Biaggi who out braked himself and had to run off track to avoid crashing, limping home in 15th place.

But it was the British pocket rocket who had the grip, race craft and speed to claim the final podium spot. Go Leon.

Like I said last night, if only the TV coverage was up to scratch.

Shinya Nakano is a rider I'd love to see doing well this year. His riding style is totally immaculate and he is one of the riders whose career really suffered as MotoGP switched from 500's to 990's being just outside the chosen few.

Another stand out theme for me in this race is the size of the bikes. Only the Kawasaki and in part the Suzuki, actually look like big bus road bikes. These other bikes are super small compact racing bikes.

Loser of the weekend had to be Shakey Byrne. Poor qualifying and two race crashes. He would have been hoping for so much more, but did just enough to pip Baiggi for disappointment.