Michael van der Mark finished second in Sunday’s tenth round World Supersport championship race at Magny-Cours in France, in spite of crashing at the infamous Adelaide hairpin on lap seven.

Starting from the second row of the grid in wet conditions at the 4.411km French circuit, van der Mark, who was crowned 2014 World Supersport champion after the previous round at Jerez in Spain, settled into third place behind early race leader Kenan Sofuoglu and Jules Cluzel.

However, while running a relatively lonely race, the 21-year-old Dutch ace lost the front of his Honda CBR600RR on the seventh of the scheduled 17 laps. Van der Mark picked up his machine and rejoined the race in seventh place, fighting his way back to second after Sofuoglu himself crashed out of the lead.

Van der Mark’s Pata Honda team-mate, Lorenzo Zanetti, had fought his way up to fourth place from 10th on the grid and was challenging for the final podium place when the red flags came out on lap 13, signalling a premature end to the race.

It would have been Zanetti’s second podium of the season but the 27-year-old Italian retains fourth place in the championship, 17 points from third with the final race due to take place at Doha in Qatar on 2 November.

Michael van der Mark - 2nd

First of all I want to thank my team because I gave them a lot of work to do after I crashed in the warm-up this morning. They did a great job and gave me a bike that I was able to be really fast on immediately. Unfortunately I had a small crash at the hairpin which cost me a few places but when I picked up the bike I was able to go fast again straight away so I could get by the guys in front of me. I feel sorry for Kenan because he really deserved the win today but I’m happy to finish second.

Lorenzo Zanetti - 4th

I’m definitely not having much luck this season. Considering the qualifying position, I guess that fourth place is not too bad but I am quite angry because the podium was so close. The red flag came at the wrong time for me and I’m not sure of the reason why. But anyway, the race before this point was OK and now I have to fight hard and have some good luck in the final race at Qatar to try and get third place in the championship.

Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator

This morning’s warm-up didn’t quite go to plan when Michael crashed on his second lap. It meant we couldn’t really get a good feel for the wet conditions here but when the race began he was fast. He crashed out while fighting for second and had to get his way back there, which was a good effort. Lorenzo struggled in the dry all weekend and was cautious in warm-up. He was riding pretty well in the race and, even though he didn’t have Michael’s pace, he was fighting for fourth and fifth and eventually the podium. The race was red-flagged so he couldn’t get there, but we certainly saw the Lorenzo that we like to see.

Weather/Wet  - Air/17°C   -  Track 14°C   -  Humidity/72%

Race Results - 4.411km, 12 laps

1 Jules Cluzel 23m54.426s FRA MV MV Agusta RC2 Michael van der Mark +20.274s NED HONDA Pata Honda World SupersportTeam3 Roberto Rolfo +24.232s ITA KAWASAKI Team GO Eleven4 Lorenzo Zanetti +24.911s ITA HONDA Pata Honda World SupersportTeam5 Florian Marino +26.599s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres6 Kev Coghlan +26.860s GBR YAMAHA DMC Panavto-Yamaha7 Roberto Tamburini +28.110s ITA KAWASAKI San Carlo Puccetti Racing8 Patrick Jacobson +29.777s USA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres9 Ratthapark Wilairot +53.463s THA HONDA Core PTR Honda10 Dominic Schmitter +54.266s SUI YAMAHA HAGN-SKM Racing

Championship Standings

1 Michael van der Mark 205 pts NED HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team2 Jules Cluzel 132 pts FRA MV MV Agusta RC3 Florian Marino 120 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres4 Lorenzo Zanetti 103 pts ITA HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team5 Kev Coghlan 98 pts GBR YAMAHA DMC Panavto-Yamaha6 Patrick Jacobson 95 pts USA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres7 Roberto Rolfo 87 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team GO Eleven8 Kenan Sofuoglu 86 pts TUR KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India9 Raffaele De Rosa 67 pts ITA HONDA Core PTR Honda10 Roberto Tamburini 63 pts ITA KAWASAKI San Carlo Puccetti Racing