Dominique Aegerter fought to his 15th victory in the 2022 FIM Supersport World Championship, beating championship rival Lorenzo Baldassarri in a San Juan Villicum classic.
Ten Kate Racing’s Dominique Aegerter backed up his race one victory in Argentina with another sensational performance in race two as he battled his way through to beat Lorenzo Baldassarri on the final lap.
After a record-breaking pole position and race one victory, Aegerter searched for a 15th win of the season from the pole position but didn’t make the cleanest of starts as he fell through the pack to fourth behind title rival Baldassarri before losing a further place to Niki Tuuli on lap five; and as Aegerter relinquished fourth, Baldassarri began his charge forward, passing Federico Caricasulo at turn five.
It wasn’t long until Aegerter dropped his pace and began making headway, first capitalising on a mistake from Tuuli ahead, the Swiss rider then set the fastest lap at the halfway point as he chased the leading group. A crash for Raffaele De Rosa promoted Baldassarri to the lead and Aegerter onto the podium but it would quickly become a Yamaha one-two as the 32-year-old cleared the Ducati.
With three laps remaining, the championship leader was able to shake off the Ducati behind, leaving a head-to-head duel to develop between the two title protagonists. Running wide at turn nine, Aegerter dealt the first blow, passing the number seven R6 on the exit, but Baldassarri was quick to retaliate as he re-claimed the lead a lap later.
Locked together as the duo began the final lap, Baldassarri held the advantage, dragging Aegerter around before a sublime final corner lunge from the Swiss rider secured his victory, leaving the Italian to run wide and re-join just behind Caricasulo and finish the race in third.
Jules Cluzel saw a top five narrowly escape from him as he crossed the line in sixth aboard his GMT94 Yamaha with team-mate Andy Verdoia inside the top ten in ninth.
Glenn van Straalen bounced back from an early race one crash to finish 11th with second Evan Bros.WorldSSP Yamaha Team rider Peter Sebestyen securing another 12th place in race two. Ondrej Vostatek and Marcel Brenner claimed the final points on offer in 14th and 15th places respectively.
Bradley Smith was unfortunate not to repeat his strong debut performance on Saturday which saw him finish 14th after being taken out at turn one by another rider.
Thanks to a superb double tango in Argentina, Dominique Aegerter has one hand firmly on the title as he leads Baldassarri in the championship race by 72 points meaning it’s match point Aegerter ahead of race one in Indonesia.
The FIM Supersport World Championship will take a short break before returning to action at the Pertamina Mandalika International Street Circuit in Indonesia for the penultimate round of the season on 11-13 November ahead of the final battle in Australia the following week.
Dominique Aegerter – Ten Kate Racing, 1st & 1st
“It’s been a fantastic weekend and we’ve taken the maximum out of it with a pole position, a new lap record and two great wins. Today it was a great fight with Baldassarri who improved a lot from Saturday. He and Caricasulo both have really good bikes, and I had to take advantage of their mistakes. I’ve worked hard at home to stay as mentally strong and not make any mistakes and today that helped me. The last lap with Baldassarri was really fun, each bike and rider have its style and I saw he was running a different gearing to me and made a small mistake which I took advantage of. I was losing a bit on the straight and had to push on the brakes to get passed, but anyway, we got the 25 points.
“Going to Indonesia there is no change for me. I’ll train and prepare the same, start the weekend on Friday with the same target and try to fight for victory in the two races. That’s our goal.
“Also, I want to send my congratulations to my crew chief and his girlfriend on the arrival of their newborn baby this morning.”
Lorenzo Baldassarri – Evan Bros.WorldSSP Team, 9th & 3rd
“It’s my first time here in Argentina and we can be happy with our performance overall this weekend. Yesterday we had some issues that I don’t quite understand but today we made a really good step and nearly beat Dominique (Aegerter) but he passed me on the last lap. I had a moment and my foot slipped off the footrest which gave me a bad exit and let Domi get alongside and as I went wide I got a neutral which dropped me back to third!
“Overall, it was a good weekend, and we go to Indonesia now with a clear target. I will be working hard to learn the track, watching videos, and playing the games before the weekend. I want to enjoy myself for the final two races and try to achieve the best results possible.”
