High Drama in Race One

WSB Race One at Monza had to be restarted twice after two successive crashes in the first chicane, taking out Neukirchner, Hill, Tamada, Corser and Roberts. Neukirchner suffered a broken right femur (thigh) and dislocated foot. Naturally, he did not make the restart and neither did Tamada or Roberts. On the third-time-lucky restart, Corser failed to complete a full lap and Spies looked like he had the win ... but ran out of gas on the last corner and crossed in 15th place. I seem to remember this being a favourite track for F1 cars to run out of gas. The beneficiary of Ben's misfortune was Fabrizio who took his first WSB win, followed home 2/10ths later by Haga, and a photo finish for third by Biaggi and Kiyonari. In another raceday drama, Biaggi was penalized 20 seconds for cutting a chicane dropping him from third to 11th. Stand-in newbie Jake Zemke managed a respectable 18th after starting 22nd (without the drop-outs). Haga now has an insurmountable lead of 79 points over Spies and Fabrizio is less than 20 points behind. Stay tooned for Race Two!