It wasn’t a particularly spectacular weekend for the Brits in the Superbike World Championship at Monza. Michel Fabrizio’s race one victory pushed him up to 3rd in the overall standings, so Leon Haslam is down to 4th. Ben Spies grabbed another race win to stay 2nd, but despite a retirement in race two it’s still comfortably Noriyuki Haga on top.

On the plus side, continuing consistent results mean Tommy Sykes is up to 5th overall. And in Supersport, another victory for Cal Crutchlow keeps him at the top of the championship.

But let’s play to our advantages. With five regular British riders, and two in the top five, we have quantity on our side. So who is winning the irrelevant World Superbike ‘Battle of the Nations’?

It’s Japan, with 353 points. 200 of those points come from Haga, with Kiyonari, Kagayama, Nakano and Tamada topping it up. But Britain is second, at least. Haslam, Sykes and Rea provide the bulk of the 317 points, with Byrne and Hill supplementing them.

Italy, the only other country with five points scoring riders, is third, though almost all of the 215 points come from Fabrizio and Biaggi. Spies almost single-handedly puts the USA fourth with 155, in that only 9 of those points were scored by Hopkins. Given how popular bike racing is over there, Spain is a surprisingly lowly fifth, with Checa and Xaus notching up 93 points between them.

Mark my words: I will yet come up with a measure by which Britain is winning.