Phillip Island is, in fact, an island. It's sat in Melbourne harbour in Southern Australia, and it's a very picturesque place indeed. It's also a little exposed, and though we're just coming into the spring here, in Australia they're heading into autumn. So weather can be a distinct issue - it's usually pretty windy and torrential rain isn't unheard of either. Neither is balmy, pleasant sunshine. Indeed, it's not too unusual to get all three in the course of, say, an afternoon. Which can make tyre choices interesting.

Coming here straight from Qatar, there was no doubt that the man to watch was race two winner and joint championship leader James Toseland. From the first laps to the last knockings of qualifying, the young Englishman was in cracking form, turning in consistently fast laps and parking himself firmly at the top of the leaderboard. Well, not quite at the top, because local boy and defending champion Troy Bayliss seems to have regained at least some of the form that was sorely lacking last weekend and swapped positions with Toseland more than once, though never by more than eight tenths of a second, and once by as little as five thousandths.

The peculiarities of the circuit seem to suit local knowledge, as Troy Corser also regained some of his legendary consistency to spend most of his time in third place, while Steve Martin, Josh Brookes and Karl Muggeridge all benefited from having grown up racing around here and demonstrated just why they're racing at this level. Brookes, unfortunately, pushed his still almost showroom standard Honda a little too hard and it went bang. This in itself shouldn't have been a problem but the next rider along, riding close behind, hit the oil before it was flagged and experienced an extremely unpleasant high speed departure. Bad enough, but the fact that it was Brookes' team-mate Karl Muggeridge who was taken away with concussion made things worse. Muggeridge had done enough to qualify for Superpole but his medical status wasn't confirmed and he was not allowed to ride. In fact, his medical status for the race wasn't confirmed until Sunday morning.

Someone who took themselves out of the race for sure was Yukio Kagayama. The Japanese rider was hospitalised with a suspected broken collar bone and possible ruptured spleen, but though his injuries are happily nowhere near that bad they are sufficient to render him unfit for the race.

Max Biaggi, the other joint series leader, had a bit of a torrid time, finding himself as low as ninth in qualifying though steadily improving. There were some distinct issues with the Suzuki, which the team were clearly working hard to resolve, but Max seemed happy enough after qualifying.

Someone else going rather well was Max Neukirchner on the Suzuki Germany GSX-R, snapping at the heels of his illustrious factory rider rival, while Fonsi Nieto brought the Kawasaki in for a brief but welcome foray to the front.

Superpole, then, saw an early lead for Nori Haga which got snatched three times in quick succession, by Corser, Toseland and Bayliss. Max Biaggi took fifth to head up the second row, while Nieto muscled the Kawasaki to sixth. Max Neukirchner and fans' favourite Ruben Xaus finished the second row, while Laconi, Lanzi, Martin and Brookes lined up behind them.

Sunday Warmup saw Bayliss and Corser making the running from Nieto and Biaggi, with a worryingly off the pace Toseland back in eleventh, over two and a half seconds down on the leader. Interestingly, Haga was back there with him while the leaders were running at or inside their qualifying times. Could this be a sign of trouble to come in the actual race? Sunday morning also confirmed the absence of Karl Muggeridge, whose run of bad luck from last season seems to have followed him.

So at noon the riders lined up for the next round in front of record breaking crowds. It was warm, dry and pleasant - just about the perfect day to go racing, in fact. As the lights changed the usual snarling pack tore off the line towards that fast, sweeping right hander of turn one. Never mind warmup, James Toseland immediately showed what he's made of, passing Biaggi, Corser and Bayliss all in one go around the outside of turn two. Biaggi had got off the line very quickly, as he'd promised, but had to settle for fourth ahead of Haga, while Fonsi Nieto also made the most of the Kawasaki's performance to take sixth. By the end of the first lap, Toseland and Bayliss were proving to be in a class of their own again, with Toseland extending over a second's lead over third placed Corser. But Troy Corser is a tough character, and by the end of lap two he had passed Bayliss and was closing on the lead. Indeed, he closed to just a tenth of a second behind before starting to suffer from the tyre problems which currently plague the Yamaha team. So lap nine saw Bayliss breeze past his countryman to set off after the Honda. Mind you, with under half a second gap, there wasn't far to go. For the next eight laps the gap between Toseland at the front and Bayliss following was consistently around a tenth of a second, sometimes dropping to as little as sixteen thousandths. The pressure was immense, and though Toseland didn't make any mistakes his tyres started to go off and, on lap eighteen, he had to concede the lead to Bayliss. With a massive gap back to the following Corser, Toseland obviously recognised the value in a solid points finish and settled for second, two seconds behind Bayliss.

Behind the lead pair, Corser's woes were being compounded as the Yamaha ate its tyres and he slipped back towards the consistently quick Max Biaggi, dropping off the podium as the Suzuki rider blasted past on lap twenty. It got worse as Corser's team mate, Nori Haga, mugged him at the end of the final lap to take fourth place.

Lorenzo Lanzi got going after a poor start, and after a race long battle with Ruben Xaus took a well earned sixth, while Max Neukirchner prevailed over Fonsi Nieto in the very last knockings to snatch eighth. Steve Martin used his local knowledge and his considerable talent to get the still slightly off the pace DFX Honda into tenth.

Race two was lined up to be more of the same. But this time, when the the lights changed it was Troy Corser who got the drop on everyone with Toseland three tenths of a second behind at the end of the first lap, and Bayliss just two thousandths of a second behind the Englishman. Ruben Xaus was a pleasant surprise in fourth place, having started back in eighth, while Biaggi and Haga both appeared to have been caught napping, Biaggi not gaining anything despite being a strong starter and Haga dropping to sixth. Regis Laconi started well, getting ahead of Nieto and, at one point, Biaggi, before retiring in a carbon copy of his first race.

Up at the front, Corser was putting up a strong fight, but partway through the third lap Toseland made a perfect pass and immediately extended a massive one tenth of a second lead. No, really. Three laps later, when Bayliss also got past Corser, the gap from first to third was just a third of a second, with fourth placed Haga, who had really got the hammer down, just another third of a second back. Biaggi was still in fifth, over two and a half seconds down, with Xaus behind him followed by Laconi, Lanzi, Nieto and Neukirchner.

The pace was quite astonishing as the leading group, now consisting of Toseland, Bayliss, Haga, Biaggi, Corser, pulled clear of the rest of the pack. By lap eighteen there was over nine and a half seconds from fifth placed Corser back to sixth placed Lanzi, while at the front of the group there was barely a tenth between Toseland and Bayliss, and about half a layer of paint between Biaggi and Haga. And so it stayed. Bayliss, in his own words, threw everything he had at Toseland but this time it wasn't enough and the young Englishman toughed it out to take the win by just a quarter of a second. Third placed Haga was six seconds back with Biaggi just holding Corser off to cross the line four hundredths of a second ahead. Sixth was Ruben Xaus, getting his own back on Lorenzo Lanzi who had to follow him home this time, while eighth went to Michel Fabrizio. Good to see DFX bikes in the points for both races, Steve Martin retiring in race two while Fabrizio went out in race one. Max Neukirchner came in ninth on the 2006 GSX-R and Roby Rolfo rounded out the top ten with a sterling effort hampered by poor tyre choice.

As far as the championship is concerned, Toseland is runaway leader at this stage, as indeed he was at the beginning of 2004 when he took the title. But we're only two rounds in, and it would be a foolish person indeed who would place a bet based on results this early in the season. Certainly Ducati seem to have got their act together now, and it will be interesting to see how local knowledge aids or abets riders when the SBK circus comes to Donington for the first time in many years. Toseland and Bayliss have both raced superbikes there, of course, as have Corser and Haga. Indeed, Haga made his international debut at a snowy Donington and blew everyone away with his sideways style. He also won by miles from the great Carl Fogarty. Biaggi has raced MotoGP there, too, but for most of the rest of the field Donington is a totally new experience.

We'll see you there...

Race One

1 Troy Bayliss (Ducati)
2 James Toseland (Honda)
3 Max Biaggi (Suzuki)
4 Noriuki Haga (Yamaha)
5 Troy Corser (Yamaha)
6 Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati)
7 Ruben Xaus (Ducati)
8 Max Neukirchner (Suzuki)
9 Fonsi Nieto (Kawasaki)
10 Steve Martin (Honda)

Race Two

1 James Toseland (Honda)
2 Troy Bayliss (Ducati)
3 Noriuki Haga (Yamaha)
4 Max Biaggi (Suzuki)
5 Troy Corser (Yamaha)
6 Ruben Xaus (Ducati)
7 Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati)
8 Michel Fabrizio (Honda)
9 Max Neukirchner (Suzuki)
10 Roby Rolfo (Honda)

Championship Standing after two rounds:

1 James Toseland 90
1 Max Biaggi 74
3 Troy Bayliss 64
4 Nori Haga 50
5 Troy Corser 45
6 Lorenzo Lanzi 44
7 Ruben Xaus 32
8 Max Neukirchner 31
9 Yukio Kagayama 23
10 Fonsi Nieto 20

SB