Wow! Blimey, I honestly didn't think we'd see a better end to a race than the one we witnessed as Assen in the World Supersport outing a couple of weeks ago but my goodness, wasn't the second WSB race one of those destined for the history books!

Just 0.0519s split the first three rider across the line! Let's put that into perspective; it takes you between 0.1 and 0.15 seconds to blink... that's a massive amount of time in comparison to the times that split the trio at the end of the second race.

Just 0.009s split Nori Haga from Max Neukirchner over the line. It was almost a given that Nori would be up the sharp end, he (and his Yamaha) loves Monza - he did the double there last year and when Nori's head is switched on to a place like the Italian track then there will be few who doubt him doing something very special indeed.

It was great to see Max absiolutely on it too, the kid has shown real peaks of form in the past, but his inconsistency has just stopped him reaping the rewards of his obvious natural talent for muscling a superbike around very quickly indeed. To take the first ever German victory in WSB in race one was just rewards for his riding last weekend.

But what about the incredible Ryuichi Kiyonari? Good on yer lad. During his British campaign that saw him take our domestic title twice for the HM Plant Honda squad Kiyo absolutely improved in pace, poise and presence. There was little doubt that he would end up on the world stage and now, finally, Kiyo has delivered the type of performance we knew was in him.

From what we do know of Kiyo, the fact that it's taken until Monza to really get to grips with the new Honda Fireblade isn't really a surprise. Kiyo took his time to get going in the UK BSB championship, but once his head is into the job, he's very hard to slow up.

There is an unnerving consistency to Kiyo. His lap times, his lines and the way he likes his bike set up are very regimented, which is a typically Japanese way of going about things.

In BSB, there was a common mantra about Kiyo that said that if you could get close to him early on in a race and mess up his line into a corner, generally rough him up a bit as is the way in BSB, then you stood a chance of knocking him off his stride.

Basically, Kiyo was never reckoned to be much good in a proper fairing-bashing fight. Based on how he performed in that second race I'd say that Kiyo has got his teeth back, and how.

As far as Troy Bayliss' weekend went, well the old boy can take a points hit like the mechanical that put him out of the second race and barely notice it.

But what really stood out for me was the bit where Nori Haga pulled alongside Troy a few moments before the Ducati went pop. There they were side-by-side at around 180mph and Nori looks across into his rivals eyes, Bayliss flicks his head sideways to see what Nori's up to and Nori uses the international signal of an opening and closing hand and pointing to the back of the Ducati to tell Troy something was going wrong with his bike.

Nori must have seen a puff of smoke or something from the back of the Ducati and thought it best to warn Troy to be on his guard.

But to do that at 180mph? Madness. Great racing and great riders coming through.

Even if the AMA American Superbike star Jake Zemke was refused a visa to race at the 11th hour it didn't seem to matter, because thanks to Kiyo we had plenty of new blood at the front of the pack at one of the great race tracks of all time.

Let's hope the Kiyo speed and skills continue to show themselves. And that the Ducatis can keep themselves together for the next race, of course.

Tony Carter / Eurosport