Pata Honda's season back on track at Aragon

[totalmotorcycle]

Pata #Honda's season back on track at #Aragon



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 today's 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 - 2nd

I’m really happy with this result. We’ve been working all weekend to fix some strange problems and then this morning we found that our race pace was quite good. My start wasn’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 keep pushing. I made a small mistake at the hairpin and they passed me and I lost some contact 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 really happy after zero points in the first race.





Lorenzo Zanetti - 4th

I’m happy to come back to racing with this result. I started not too bad and was immediately with the leading group. My strategy was to stay with them, not to fight and get into a good rhythm and that was going OK until I made a mistake. It changed the rhythm a bit and when Cluzel and Coghlan crashed I tried to pressurise Marino but he pushed a bit more. Fourth place is not so bad for my condition but I need to work now on podium finishes. I finished too many times in fourth place last year so it’s necessary to go to the next 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 to open a gap but a small mistake dropped him back. We were a bit lucky because the two front riders crashed and he came in behind Sofuoglu. But second place after Phillip Island is really good. He takes a good feeling to Assen, too. Lorenzo was also aggressive from the start, with the leading group, in a battle for fourth. He got gapped after a small mistake and spent the rest of the race on his own. But it was a good day for Supersport and now we look forward to a busy home round for the team.






Weather
Sunny


Air
19°C


Track
25°C


Humidity
54%






Race Results

1 Kenan Sofuoglu 30m43.276s TUR KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
2 Michael van der Mark +0.869 NED HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team
3 Florian Marino +9.091 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres
4 Lorenzo Zanetti +10.475 ITA HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team
5 Kev Coghlan +15.194 GBR YAMAHA DMC Panavto-Yamaha
6 Raffaele De Rosa +18.579 ITA HONDA Core PTR Honda
7 Roberto Tamburini +19.059 ITA KAWASAKI San Carlo Puccetti Racing
8 Vladimir Leonov +19.846 RUS MV MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
9 Christian Gamarino +20.077 ITA KAWASAKI Team GO Eleven
10 Ratthapark Wilairot +24.569 THA HONDA Core PTR Honda


Championship Standings - Round 2

1 Kev Coghlan 31 pts GBR YAMAHA DMC Panavto-Yamaha
2 Florian Marino 29 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres
4 Kenan Sofuoglu 25 pts TUR KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
5 Jules Cluzel 25 pts FRA MV MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
6 Michael van der Mark 20 pts NED HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team
7 Roberto Tamburini 20 pts ITA KAWASAKI San Carlo Puccetti Racing
8 Lorenzo Zanetti 13 pts ITA HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team
9 Christian Gamarino 13 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team GO Eleven
10 Kevin Wahr 10 pts GER YAMAHA Team Wahr by Kraus Racing