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Castrol Honda\'s Colin Edwards and Yamaha\'s Noriyuki Haga took a win and a second place each to jointly lead the World Superbike championship after Sunday\'s opening round at Kyalami in South Africa.
Edwards won a sensational opening race, passing Haga with three corners to go to give Honda victory with its new VTR machine. Defending champion Carl Fogarty was third as the podium finishers were separated by just 0.2s.
Haga took the lead from Edwards on the second lap of the second 25-lap race of the day and was shadowed until seven laps from the end when Edwards eased off to take a comfortable second place and share the lead of the 13-round series with Haga. Suzuki\'s Pier-Francesco Chili took a lonely third place.
Edwards commented: The first race was unbelievable, it would have been difficult to repeat that excitement but it was a great start to the season for me, Honda, the team and the fans around the world. Haga was pretty intent on winning that second race and, with a win in the bag, second place was fine.
Fogarty crashed out without injury on the 11th lap and pole position rider Troy Corser took fourth place in both races. Castrol Honda\'s Simon Crafar finished 14th in both races.
First race result: 1 Colin Edwards, USA (Castrol Honda) 43m 21.141s, 2 Noriyuki Haga, Japan (Yamaha) 43m 21.274s, 3 Carl Fogarty, GB (Ducati) 43m 21.366s, 4 Troy Corser, Australia (Aprilia) 43m 28.988s, 5 Pier-Francesco Chili, Italy (Suzuki) 43m 31.153s, 6 Gregorio Lavilla, Spain (Kawasaki) 43m 52.335s, 7 Haruchika Aoki, Japan (Ducati) 43m 57.331s, 8 Katsuaki Fujiwara, Japan (Suzuki) 44m 01.063s, 9 Ben Bostrom, USA (Ducati) 44m 04.572s, 10 Juan Borja, Spain (Ducati) 44m 05.539s.
Second race result: 1 Noriyuki Haga, Japan (Yamaha) 43m 22.756s, 2 Colin Edwards, USA (Castrol Honda) 43m 29.238s, 3 Pier-Francesco Chili, Italy (Suzuki) 43m 34.723s, 4 Troy Corser, Australia (Aprilia) 43m 39.730s, 5 Haruchika Aoki, Japan (Ducati) 43m 52.988s, 6 Gregorio Lavilla, Spain (Kawasaki) 43m 56,352s, 7 Juan Borja, Spain (Ducati) 43m 59.897s, 8 Ben Bostrom, USA (Ducati) 44m 00.776s, 9 Katsuaki Fujiwara, Japan (Suzuki) 44m 01.062s, 10 Alessandro Antonello, Italy (Aprilia) 44m 13.740s.
Championship points after one of 13 rounds: 1 Edwards and Haga 45, 3 Chili 27, 4 Corser 26, 5 Aoki and Lavilla 20, 7 Fogarty 16, 8 Borja, Fujiwara and Bostrom 15.
Next round: April 23 - Phillip Island, Australia.
