It was close and he did all that he could, but in the end Yamaha Motor Italia’s Nori Haga fell just short of winning the 2007 World Superbike Championship today in the series finale at Magny-Cours, France. While James Toseland, leader of the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team, went into the closing round with a 29-point lead, all bets were off went both Toseland and Max Biaggi were both involved in an early race crash. Both would renter the race with Biaggi and Toseland racing all the way back to sixth and seventh, respectively. What cause drama for the Toseland camp, however, was the fact that Haga had scored a convincing win and closed the gap on Toseland by 17 points, thus the 2007 World Championship would go down to the last and final leg. All things considered, if Haga were to win the leg and Toseland finish farther back than eighth, Haga would win the title.

At the start of the second race, Haga took off like a scalded cat, amassing a five second lead by the race’s halfway mark. Behind him raced Troy Corser and Max Biaggi, the later taking the measure of Corser on lap number eight. Fonsi Nieto would also pass Corser at the 15-lap mark. And while Haga would race away to victory, Toseland motored away in a safe and conservative sixth place position. And that’s where he would finish, winning the World Championship by a mere two points. Max Biaggi, with a second place finish in the last race, clinched third overall in his rookie WSB season.