Biaggi win closes gap on Checa

Max Biaggi won the second race of the Superbike World Championship round in Spain to close the gap on series leader Carlos Checa to 63 points.

Biaggi had lost the battle for the first race to Marco Melandri but still gained ground on Checa who crashed out of the opener at Motorland Aragon.
Althea Ducati's Checa recovered from that fall to finish third second time out at the seventh of the season's 13 rounds.
Melandri (Yamaha) took his second win of the year after passing Biaggi when the Italian made a mistake towards the end of race one.
Melandri, who started from pole position, won by just 1.5 seconds as defending champion Biaggi was unable to make up enough ground after his error.
Biaggi's team-mate Leon Camier was third ahead of Melandri's team-mate Eugene Laverty, who came out on top in a fight with Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing) for fourth.
Nori Haga (Pata Aprilia) and top Spaniard Joan Lascorz (Kawasaki Racing) were also in close attention while BMW riders Ayrton Badovini, Leon Haslam and Troy Corser rounded out the top 10.
The hopes of championship leader Checa had ended on lap eight as he fell from his Ducati when in the top three.
Checa had been trying to keep pace with the front two and had just set the fastest lap when he crashed.
Biaggi won race two after he fought off the attentions of Melandri with Checa this time deciding to settle for a safe third as he tried to limit the damage to his points lead.
Fourth went to the Alstare Suzuki of Michel Fabrizio, with Lascorz fifth and Laverty sixth.
Haga, Camier, Haslam and Badovini completed the top 10.