Team Yoshimura Suzuki’s Atsushi Watanabe raced to his first podium of the season with third place in today’s seventh-round Japan Superbike Championship round at Okayama International circuit. Watanabe started from ninth on the grid behind pole-setter, Suzuki development rider Kousuke Akiyoshi on his Yoshimura GSX-R1000, who led into the first corner. Watanabe avoided a crash at the second corner, dropped to seventh position, but moved up to fifth before the end of the lap. Akiyoshi led for eight laps until he suffered tyre problems that allowed Akira Yanagawa (Kawasaki) through and Watanabe caught and passed his team mate on the 15th lap. Said Watanabe: “This is my first podium this season. I made a good start but had a big slide early on. I got back to second and tried to follow Yanagawa but I couldn’t get by him because my tyre was sliding in corners. I did have some good battles today and I’m happy with the result.” Akiyoshi added: “I made a great start and lead Yanagawa by two seconds in the first two laps. But my bike started chattering on the sixth lap and I couldn’t keep my pace.” Results: 1 Akira Yanagawa (Kawasaki). 2 Tatsuya Yamaguchi (Honda). 3 Atsushi Watanabe (Yoshimura Suzuki). 4 Shin-ichi Ito (Honda). 5 Shin-ichi Nakatomi (Yamaha). 6 Kousuke Akiyoshi (Yoshimura Suzuki). 7 Takeshi Tsujimura (Honda). 8 Yoshiteru Konishi (Honda). 9 Chojun Kameya (Honda). 10 Naoki Matsudo (Moriwaki Honda). Championship Points: 1 Ito 123, 2 Yanagawa 96, 3 Yamaguchi 96, 4 Tsujimura 91, 5 Nakatomi 81, 6 Matsudo 62, 7 Watanabe 61.