Motorcycling: Kiyonari edges closer to title after rivals crash out

Ryuichi Kiyonari moved closer to retaining his British Superbikes crown with a pair of second places in an incident-packed 11th round at Cadwell Park yesterday.

Leon Haslam powered in his second victory of the season in the opener but undid his good work by tumbling out of the second. That was won by Jonathan Rea, who put his title bid back on track after twice crashing in the opening race. He went down, while in second, in a tangle with Leon Camier. He remounted but come off again on the penultimate lap.

It was Rea's fifth win of the season. He led from the start ahead of his team-mate Kiyonari and the Stobart Vent Axia Honda of Tom Sykes.

Rea said: "It was a really good race, it's hard to make up for the DNF in race one because we are racing for the championship as well as race wins. But we came out fighting in the second race and to win it at Honda's home track is pretty impressive."

The second race was marred by a heavy crash involving the luckless Camier as he crested the Mountain section. He sustained a broken left femur, a fractured knee and also complained of some back pain and after treatment at the circuit he was airlifted to hospital in Lincoln.

This caused a safety car period of three laps, allowing the chasing pack to bunch up. When the car came in Haslam showed his desperation to take the second win of the day when he went wide at Park as he tried to make a move on Tom Sykes which dropped him back to ninth. The "Pocket Rocket" later crashed his Airwaves Ducati at Park on the final lap of the race.

Kiyonari now leads the title stakes by 41 points on 388 from HM Plant Honda team-mate Rea, with Haslam third on 313 with two rounds remaining.