MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Rain threatened once again, as World Supersport lined up for nineteen laps of Donington Park as the temperature dropped to 18.8ºC. Once again, it held off and let the racers race. 

As Adrian Huertas lifted his front wheel on the launch from pole position, Yari Montella took the lead, putting Huertas between Montella and Manzi. Huertas took back the lead into turn one of lap two as the French veterans Valentin Debise and Lucas Mahias looked on in fourth and fifth places. Huertas set a fastest lap of 1'29.372 on lap two but couldn't shake off Montella behind him until lap four where he finally put a one second gap between himself and Montella, setting a lap record of 1'28.861 in the process.

Behind Huertas, Montella led the nine-bike fight for second place, but by lap six, Montella and Manzi broke free from Debise and Mahias with Jorge Navarro, Bahattin Sofuoglu and Tom Booth-Amos over a second behind them.

At the start of lap seven, Huertas had a lead of over two seconds as he lapped over half a second quicker than the bikes behind him. Lap eight, another half second.

Tom Booth-Amos picked up a long lap penalty for not losing a second when he took the run-off at the Fogarty Esses as Debise broke free of Mahias and closed up on Manzi as Mahias dropped to eighth place, behind Navarro, Sofuoglu and Booth-Amos.

By lap twelve, Huertas led Montella by over three and a half seconds as Manzi and Debise dropped off by a second in their own battle for third. Fourteen laps completed and Huertas had an almost five second lead over Montella, passing the five second mark a lap later.

With three laps to go, Huertas led Montella and Manzi by over five seconds, as the three all lapped at a similar pace. Debise and Navarro a second further back matched their pace as the laps ticked down. Navarro passed Debise as Manzi started troubling Montella, passing him on lap eighteen into turn nine and holding it through the exit of the Esses.

Adrian Huertas wagged his finger as he convincingly won, but further back, Federico Caricasulo knocked an unhappy Marcel Schroetter into the gravel on the last corner of the last lap. Stefano Manzi held onto second place ahead of Yari Montella with Jorge Navarro beating Valentin Debise to fourth place.

The results were held back for a while as the clash between Caricasulo and Schroetter was investigated, and Caricasulo was eventually penalised five places, putting him outside the points. Niki Tuuli lost a place for exceeding track limits at the Esses on the last lap. 

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