The traditional SBK Hall of Fame ceremony that took place shortly before race 1 at Donington Park last weekend saw awards going to two British riders who, albeit belonging to two different generations, have been linked on a professional and friendship level for a long time. The two men in question are Roger Burnett and James Toseland, who were awarded their prestigious 25th anniversary medal by SBK General Manager Paolo Ciabatti.

Infront Motor Sports wishes to communicate the following in relation to the round of the eni FIM Superbike World Championship held at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza on the weekend of 4-6 May.

Giorgio Barbier (Racing Director Pirelli Moto) analyzes the fifth round of the year, held at Donington Park (UK), from the point of view of the championship's official one-make tyre supplier.

"This weekend on English soil provided truly great and heated races for both Superbike and Supersport. The work done during the tests at Imola proved to be very important: in Superbike the R302 solution for the rear, developed from this year's standard SC1, designed to work at lower temperatures and to prevent cold tearing, was quite popular with pretty much all the riders. In Supersport as well, the R303, also a development of the SC1, was chosen by various riders. For this reason, given the excellent feedback received, we will definitely see these two solutions again in some of the future championship races. The Superbike Championship competition is very tight every year, and this year is no exception: in race two six different manufacturers crossed the finish line in the top six places, which shows just how much Pirelli's work contributes to placing all the teams in optimum conditions to be able to realistically aspire to the world title. In addition to congratulations to Marco Melandri and Jonathan Rea, respectively the winners of race 1 and race 2, my compliments go to Max Biaggi who had the best lap in both races as well as Sam Lowes, current ranking leader of the Pirelli Supersport Best Lap Awards"

Pirelli BEST LAP Awards:

SBK Race 1 - Max Biaggi (Aprilia Racing Team) 1'28.992 (Lap 6)
SBK Race 2 - Max Biaggi (Aprilia Racing Team) 1'28.995 (Lap 4)
Total BEST LAP (SBK): Checa C. (Althea Racing) 3, Biaggi M. (Aprilia Racing Team) 3, Sykes T. (Kawasaki Racing Team) 2, Sylvain Guintoli (Team Effenbert Liberty Racing) 1

WSS - Sam Lowes (Bogdanka PTR Honda) 1'31.097 (Lap 21)
Total BEST LAP (WSS): Lowes S. (Bogdanka PTR Honda) 2, Foret F. (Kawasaki Intermoto Step) 1, Parkes B. (Ten Kate Racing Products) 1, Lanzi L. (Prorace) 1.

Infront Sports & Media has reached a three-year agreement (2013-2014-2015, with an option for the following three years) with the Mediaset Group for the exclusive broadcasting of the eni FIM Superbike World Championship in Italy. The world championship rounds will be broadcast free-to-air on the Italia 1 channel starting from 2013.

FIXI Crescent Suzuki racer John Hopkins will return to the team for the next round at Miller Motorsports Park in America after being forced to miss last weekend's races through injury. Hopkins suffered a broken bone in his right foot and damage to his left hip following a high-side at Monza in Italy earlier this month. It was initially hoped that he would be fit for the Donington Park round last weekend, but the hip injury restricted his movement too much and tests proved inconclusive.

WorldSBK.com provides a quick round-up of the facts and figures from the fifth eni Superbike World Championship round at the Donington Park circuit in the UK.

QUALIFYING
• Sixth career pole position for Tom Sykes, who equalled John Kocinski and Cal Crutchlow in the sixteenth all-time spot. It's the 25th pole for Kawasaki, which hadn't recorded four in a single season since 1994. Tom once again didn't manage to turn poles into wins: he has never won from the pole spot;

The BMW Motorrad Motorsport Team celebrated its first win in the production-based World Superbike championship on Sunday, when Marco Melandri triumphed in the team's 88th race, crossing the line in Donington ahead of team-mate Leon Haslam, who completed the one-two for BMW. The milestone win follows on from Troy Corser claiming the team's first pole position and podium finish in 2010, Marco Melandri finishing runner-up in his very first race for BMW Motorrad this year and Leon Haslam scoring two podium finishes at Imola weekend.

Giorgio Barbier (Racing Director Pirelli Moto) analyzes the fifth round of the year, held at Donington Park (UK), from the point of view of the championship's official one-make tyre supplier.

Jonathan Rea (Honda World Superbike Team) took his second race win of the season after an incident-strewn race at Donington. On the first corner Carlos Checa (Althea Racing Ducati) and Eugene Laverty (Aprilia Racing Team) touched and Checa went down, taking out Jakub Smrz (Liberty Racing Team Effenbert Ducati) and Checa's team-mate Davide Giugliano.

In winning his first ever WSS race British rider Sam Lowes (Bogdanka PTR Honda) became the fifth different winner in five races this season and the third in a row on a Honda machine. Having struggled on with a stomach bug of some kind since Friday, and suffering a serious finger injury in a fall on Saturday, Lowes had to work hard to resist a late push from eventual second place finisher, Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki DeltaFin Lorenzini).

A truly historic 1-2 for the BMW Motorrad Motorsport Team saw Marco Melandri win a 23-lap opening race at Donington with his team-mate Leon Haslam only 0.728 seconds behind.

Jakub Smrz (Liberty Effenbert Racing Team Ducati) was the fastest rider in the second qualifying session at Donington and therefore enters the Tissot-Superpole contest later this afternoon full of confidence.

Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) was in the lead for some time but Smrz used his very last lap to ease him out.