The stifling Imola heat is making for a difficult seventh round of the Supersport World Championship. Kawasaki Puccetti Racing rider Lucas Mahias, who is racing with the historic ELF livery this weekend, concluded Friday’s practice sessions in twentieth position, having worked with his technicians to adapt his ZX-6R to the Italian track. This morning the Frenchman was back out for Superpole, setting a best of 1’52”245 to qualify tenth. With this result, he started the afternoon’s race from the fourth row. Lucas got away well, holding his start position. Battling as part of the chasing group and demonstrating good race pace, Mahias crossed the line in ninth place.
Tomorrow will see the Kawasaki Puccetti Racing rider line up for the second and final race of the weekend.
Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari – Imola – Italy
Supersport World Championship
Superpole: 1) Caricasulo (Ducati) – 2) Bulega (Ducati) – 3) Manzi (Yamaha) – 4) Schroetter (MV Agusta) – 5) Montella (Ducati) – 6) Sofuoglu (MV Agusta) …….. 10) Mahias (Kawasaki)
Race 1 – 1) Manzi (Yamaha) – 2) Schroetter (MV Agusta) – 3) Bulega (Ducati) – 4) Sofuoglu (MV Agusta) 5) Montella (Ducati) – 6) De Rosa (Ducati) …….. 9) Mahias (Kawasaki)
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“It’s been a positive day. I went quite well in Superpole and qualified tenth. The race turned out more or less as I thought it would, although I’d hoped to do a little better, in that my feeling with the bike is improving and we’re consistently closer to the frontrunners. Tomorrow I hope we can harness the data collected today and score a better result. I want to thank the team for all their hard work today.”
