After rain conditioned day one of play at the Donington Park circuit in the UK, the second day of Supersport World Championship fortunately ran in dry conditions.
Having placed sixth in Friday’s free practice sessions, French rider Lucas Mahias was back on track today for Superpole and the first race of the weekend.
In Superpole Lucas put in a very strong performance, improving on his best of yesterday to set a 1’30”122 and secure fourth place on the starting grid for the afternoon’s race.
Mahias got away well when the lights went out, but after running near the front for a few laps, he was unable to find sufficiently fast pace to stick with the leading group. He then battled as part of the chasing group before crossing the line eleventh, just missing out on the top ten.
The Kawasaki Puccetti Racing rider will be back on track tomorrow for the second and final WorldSSP race.
Donington Park – UK – Supersport World Championship
Superpole: 1) Bulega (Ducati) – 2) Montella (Ducati) – 3) Manzi (Yamaha) – 4) Mahias (Kawasaki) – 5) Huertes (Kawasaki) – 6) Tuuli (Triumph)
Race 1 – 1) Bulega (Ducati) – 2) Manzi (Yamaha) – 3) Montella (Ducati) – 4) Caricasulo (Ducati) – 5) Van Straalen (Yamaha) – 6) Huertas (Kawasaki) …….. 10) Mahias (Kawasaki)
Lucas Mahias
“I’m quite disappointed with today’s result. I was fast in both the free practices and Superpole and started the race from the second row. I made a good start but then I couldn’t maintain the kind of pace I needed to run with those ahead. Luckily, we collected a lot of data which will be useful for tomorrow’s race, when we’ll try to do better. A big thank you to my team for all their hard work.”
