The cathedral of two wheeled racing, Assen in the Northern part of the Netherlands threw up the newest winner in the World Superbike series in the form of Sylvain Guintoli who was riding an Effenbert Liberty Ducati. However, the race was anything but straightforward with the threat of rain looming over the race. When the red lights switched off, pole sitter Tom Sykes took off like a missile on the factory Kawasaki followed by the rest of the field which saw Marco Melandri and Leon Haslam along with Sylvain Guintoli closing up on Tom Sykes after Jonathan Rea fell back a little while chasing Sykes. However with about 11 laps to go, the radiator on the Kawasaki of Tom Sykes blew up and forced the rider into retirement. A couple of laps later the rain suddenly started pelting down and this saw the red flag being brought out after the bikes of Marco Melandri and a couple of other riders crashed.
The race was resumed after a while when the bikes were allowed to change to a wet set up and in the pouring rain, there were chances of the first ever victory for BMW in World Superbikes. However, Leon Haslam who was leading by 9 seconds on his BMW crashed with a few laps to go and that briefly brought BMW Italia rider Ayrton Badovini into the spotlight as he took the lead. However, Badovini too crashed while leading just as Haslam had. For a while the lead was with Jonathan Rea who also crashed. While riders were dropping like nine pins, Carlos Checa and his teammate on the Unibat Ducati, Davide Giugliano were in the lead before Guintoli came through to lead the Ducatis to the finish line. Giugliano who is the reigning World Superstock champion clinched his first podium ahead of his more experienced and celebrated teammate and reigning World Superbike champion Carlos Checa. The Aprilias of Max Biaggi and Eugene Laverty rounded out the top five in the race where there were not too many riders finishing the race.