A look back at Magny-Cours

2009 - Seven days after Imola it was the turn of the Magny Cours round, and Spies was back on pole, with nearly half of a second over Jonathan Rea; Fabrizio, Biaggi and Haga completed the top five. Spies took the lead at the first corner and was followed by Rea, Biaggi and Haga during the first stages, while Fabrizio couldn't keep up with the leaders and after a brief scrap with Haslam to get to fifth place, he spent the rest of the race on his own, without being able to reach the guys in front. The aforementioned proceeded without dramas until the seventh lap, when Rea went wide and then retired claiming engine problems, leaving Biaggi in second and Haga in third. The Japanese was able to pass Max on the seventeenth lap, after a mistake by the Aprilia rider at the 180° corner. Biaggi tried to snatch it back next time around at Adelaide, but went wide and not only didn't manage to gain the position, but he also lost contact with Haga for good. Noriyuki showed he had something left in his pocket when on the twenty-first lap set the fastest lap, reaching Spies. The American made a mistake on the last lap at the 180° corner and Haga was able to put his nose in front, but a better exit line for Ben meant he was back in the lead, winning the first race in front of Noriyuki and Biaggi.

In race two Biaggi was able to take the lead at the first corner in front of Haga, Spies and Rea. Spies tried to move forward, but it was soon clear that something wasn't right with his bike as, approaching the 180° corner he lost third place in favour of Rea, exactly when Haga took the lead from Biaggi. Noriyuki started to stretch the front group, which immediately left everyone behind and wasn't really troubled for the rest of the race, behind him Biaggi and Rea, while Spies started to lose ground as early as the fifth lap: after the race he claimed that the front tyre had no grip at all, forcing him to take things easy approaching the corners. His team manager Meregalli after the race pointed the finger towards a faulty tyre, nevertheless this left Spies crawling to a modest fourth place, occasionally shaking his head when he came out of the corners. Biaggi and Rea continued to fight for the second spot until the eleventh lap, when Biaggi secured it with a move on the last corner, which forced wide Rea. Biaggi however didn't have the pace to challenge Haga and the order remained the same until the chequered flag, with Haga importing his eighth win of the year and taking the lead of the championship by ten points over Spies, which, despite his thirteen wins had to pay once more the price to bad luck, this time in a very delicate moment, as he had to go to Portimao with the only option of winning both races to catch the Japanese rider.