North Yorkshire sidecar ace Steve Webster rocketed home to another comfortable victory in a two-part 22-lap thriller at Oschersleben, Germany to bolster his slim hopes of regaining the World Championship, as he recorded his 50th race win.

It was a second successive win for Webster with the new Suzuki GSXR 1000 engine in only its second outing.

On pole every race this season and extending a run of 16 consecutive pole positions, Webster was in classic form in an eventful race as he stormed to an imperious ten-second win.

At the off, Webster got his almost customary bad start and nearly came to grief just 100metres into the race when in the scuffling for positions into the first corner he was struck hard by championship leader Jorg Steinhausen and Bill Philp. Webster's machine was knocked askew but he recovered and the machine did not sustain any damage.

As Klaus Klaffenbock led the pack into the first corner, Webster was fifth as the jostling outfits settled down.

By lap five Webster was third and waiting for a moment to pounce when the race was red-flagged after Bill Philp and Mick Frith turned the outfit over after skidding onto the grass verge.

At the restart, wildcard entry Jock Skene shot away with Webster in close company, while front row man Klaffenbock dropped back to third.

After two laps of the second leg Webster had found his way past Skene and set out to pull away from the pack with practiced ease, whipping off six fast laps that never varied by more than 4/10ths of a second. At the flag, Webster's margin was 9.848 seconds, and the 25 points gained lifted him to fifth in the table, but only 21 points behind the leader.

Behind him though it was a massive battle for the runner-up spot, with Tom Hanks, Klaffenbock and Steve Abbott all seeming to have the upper hand at one stage or another. An audacious last lap move by Tom Hanks gave him third place, but lifted him to a slender lead.

Said a delighted Webster: "I said before the race that all we can do now is try to win all the races and see where we finish off.

"Now we are in with a real chance of winning the title despite all of the trouble we had earlier in the year. The bike went perfectly and if we can keep winning who knows what is going to happen."

Tom Hanks was equally delighted. His third place behind Klaus Klaffenbock and Webster was enough to ease into the title lead by just one point from fourth place finishers Abbott and Biggs. Hanks squeezed past Abbott in the closing stages of the race, in what turned out to be a valuable move. "I didn't even realise at the time that passing Abbott would put me in the lead," said Tom Hanks. "But when I saw on my board that Jorg had retired I decided just to go for it."

Just 21 points cover the top five places. Hanks leads on 121, just one in front of Abbott on 120 wiith Webster on 100.

Updated: 12:00 Monday, September 02, 2002