Pata Honda rider Michael van der Mark put right his no-score at the opening World Supersport championship round in Australia by finishing second in the second-round race at Aragon in Spain.
The race was won by Kenan Sofuoglu, with van der Mark’s Pata Honda team-mate Lorenzo Zanetti also getting his season started with a fourth place finish after injury prevented his own participation in the opening race at Phillip Island six weeks ago.
Van der Mark got a great start to today’s 15-lap race at the 5.344km Motorland circuit two hours west of Barcelona and led for six of the early laps before out-braking himself at the circuit’s infamous hairpin. The Dutch rider composed himself after the two leading riders crashed out on the penultimate lap to cross the line just 0.8s behind Sofuoglu.
Zanetti aso benefitted from the crash further up the field but the Italian had battled throughout the race to stay on terms with the leading group after an early mistake looked to have left him out of touch.
The Pata Honda team now moves to round three at its and van der Mark’s home round at Assen in the Netherlands in two weeks.
Michael van der Mark - 2ndI’m really happy with this result. We’ve been working all weekend to fix some strangeproblems and then this morning we found that our race pace was quite good. My startwasn’t great but I could see I was faster than the guys in front so I caught them step-by-step and tried to pull away after I got past. I felt the gap wasn’t that big and I tried to keeppushing. I made a small mistake at the hairpin and they passed me and I lost somecontact after a couple of other mistakes. After Jules [Cluzel] and Kev [Coghlan] crashed,there was just me and Kenan [Sofuoglu] left. I couldn’t get any closer to him but I’m reallyhappy after zero points in the first race.
Lorenzo Zanetti - 4thI’m happy to come back to racing with this result. I started not too bad and wasimmediately with the leading group. My strategy was to stay with them, not to fight and getinto a good rhythm and that was going OK until I made a mistake. It changed the rhythm abit and when Cluzel and Coghlan crashed I tried to pressurise Marino but he pushed a bitmore. Fourth place is not so bad for my condition but I need to work now on podiumfinishes. I finished too many times in fourth place last year so it’s necessary to go to thenext step. The target is the podium!
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator
Both riders got a good start and Mikey went to the front after a few laps. He managed toopen a gap but a small mistake dropped him back. We were a bit lucky because the twofront riders crashed and he came in behind Sofuoglu. But second place after Phillip Islandis really good. He takes a good feeling to Assen, too. Lorenzo was also aggressive fromthe start, with the leading group, in a battle for fourth. He got gapped after a small mistakeand spent the rest of the race on his own. But it was a good day for Supersport and now welook forward to a busy home round for the team.
Race Results
1 Kenan Sofuoglu 30m43.276s TUR KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India2 Michael van der Mark +0.869 NED HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team3 Florian Marino +9.091 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres4 Lorenzo Zanetti +10.475 ITA HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team5 Kev Coghlan +15.194 GBR YAMAHA DMC Panavto-Yamaha6 Raffaele De Rosa +18.579 ITA HONDA Core PTR Honda7 Roberto Tamburini +19.059 ITA KAWASAKI San Carlo Puccetti Racing8 Vladimir Leonov +19.846 RUS MV MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport9 Christian Gamarino +20.077 ITA KAWASAKI Team GO Eleven10 Ratthapark Wilairot +24.569 THA HONDA Core PTR Honda
Championship Standings - Round 2
1 Kev Coghlan 31 pts GBR YAMAHA DMC Panavto-Yamaha2 Florian Marino 29 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres4 Kenan Sofuoglu 25 pts TUR KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India5 Jules Cluzel 25 pts FRA MV MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport6 Michael van der Mark 20 pts NED HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team7 Roberto Tamburini 20 pts ITA KAWASAKI San Carlo Puccetti Racing8 Lorenzo Zanetti 13 pts ITA HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team9 Christian Gamarino 13 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team GO Eleven10 Kevin Wahr 10 pts GER YAMAHA Team Wahr by Kraus Racing
