Spanish veteran wins race two for Yoshimura Suzuki.
Yoshimura Suzuki’s fill-in rider Toni Elias was perfect over the course of the two MotoAmerica Superbike races at Circuit of The Americas this weekend, the Spaniard beating his teammate Roger Hayden to win his second race in two days on an overcast Sunday afternoon in Austin.
Elias kept his perfect MotoAmerica season intact, the former Moto2 World Champion and MotoGP race winner holding off a stalking Hayden for the majority of the 15 laps to ultimately win by a tad over four seconds once Hayden threw in the towel on the final lap.
Third place went to four-time AMA Superbike Champion Josh Hayes, the Monster Energy/Graves Yamaha rider on the podium but disappointed at ending up almost 16 seconds behind Elias. Still, he fared better than his teammate Cameron Beaubier, the defending MotoAmerica Champion forced to charge his way through the pack to a fourth-place finish after an early off-track excursion.
Fifth place went to Latus Motors Kawasaki’s Bobby Fong, the Californian again crossing the line as the top Superstock 1000 finisher. Fong held on to fourth for most of the race until being caught and passed by Beaubier.
If there was a question after his win yesterday of what Yoshimura Suzuki would do with Elias when Jake Lewis returns in a race or two from injury, the question now looms even larger. Elias is leading the 2016 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship by 10 points over Hayden, 50-40, as the series moves to Road Atlanta for two more races next weekend.