Mahi Kawasaki rider Kenan Sofuoglu has won the first World Supersport race of the season at Phillip Island, proving he is out to defend his Supersport crown. Throughout the 15 lap race, there was a constant battle with Yakhnich Yamaha rider Sam Lowes, with the lead changing between the Brit and the Turkish rider.
Lowes put up an impressive performance and did manage to hold the lead for most of the race, but with three laps remaining Sofuoglu passed the youngster, and in doing so set the fastest lap time of 1’33.283.
Finishing second on the podium, Lowes did give his Russian based team their best ever rostrum position, and the Lincolnshire lad did not give up with less than a second separating the two riders. The final step of the podium went to Pata Honda’s Michael Van Der Mark, who had a solid race, and he never dropped out of the top three.
The British riders did well to compete with the packed 33 rider grid, Scottish Kawasaki DMC rider Kev Coghlan set a steady pace, and managed to keep out of the way until he went down at MG but re-mounted for 18th place.
ParkinGo MV Agusta’s Christian Iddon did start the race really strongly and on lap six he made it to tenth position and was in a battle with Pata Honda’s Lorenzo Zanetti and Team Goeleven Andrea Antonelli for a place in the top ten. But a problem in the final laps made him drop down to 19th place, eventually finishing in 21st place and out of the points as team-mate Roby Rolfo retired.
Rookie Irishman Jack Kennedy began the first half of the race strongly and managed to claw his way up to fifth place on lap four. The Dubliner could not regain the pace and dropped outside the top ten on lap 11, but on the last lap did manage to cross the line in tenth, and in doing so bagged some valuable points on his World Supersport debut.
