MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

World Supersport started eighteen laps of a 22ºC dry track. Three riders were in contention for the championship.

Yari Montella led Adrian Huertas and Stefano Manzi into turn one, the three championship contenders at the front, with Lucas Mahias and Valentin Debise behind. No change at the front after one lap but Jorge Navarro and Tom Edwards crashed out on the first lap.

Debise passed Mahias for fourth place and he held it in spite of Mahias fighting back. Third-placed Manzi set the fastest lap on lap two with a 1'41.013 as the leading trio were covered by under three tenths of a second. Lorenzo Baldassarri crashed on lap three.

Next lap, Lucas Mahias set a 1'40.774 having passed Debise for fourth place, three quarters of a second off the lead. Tom Booth-Amos completed a long lap penalty. Yari Montella had the fastest lap on lap four, a 1'40.731, ahead of Huertas, Manzi, Mahias and Debise.

Almost four seconds off the top five, Federico Caricasulo led ten riders within a few seconds of him in a battle for sixth place. Montella set another fastest lap on lap six with a 1'40.706, but he was only two and a half hundredths quicker than Huertas behind him. A lap later, he set a 1'40.620, almost a tenth quicker than Huertas behind him. Debise passed Mahias but was unable to break free of him, but the front five were stretching out, almost three seconds covering them.

Niki Tuuli pulled in with a mechanical problem as Luke Power was summoned to the pits by the marshals.

Seven seconds behind the leading five riders, Glenn van Straalen pushed past Caricasulo to take sixth. Simone Corsi and Caricasulo then had a battle for seventh place, letting van Straalen escape a little. Extending his lead to over a second, Yari Montella set a 1'40.488 on lap nine, half race distance.

Lap eleven, Montella continued to stretch out his lead as Huertas and Manzi matched each others' pace. Two thirds race distance completed, Montella led Huertas by under a second and a half with Manzi over a second further back. Debise was two seconds off the podium with Mahias two and a half seconds further back as the fight for sixth placed raged seven and a half seconds behind him.

Valentim Debise lost the front into turn one of lap fourteen and he tried to save it, but he only recovers his bike in fourteenth place.

Lap sixteen of eighteen, Adrian Huertas closed up to under a second off Yari Montella in the lead, starting lap seventeen under half a second off. Debise crashed again, this time in turn ten.

Last lap, Montella led Huertas but Huertas was faster, starting the last lap a third of a second off, but Montella held his pace and didn't let Huertas close up throughout the whole lap, breaking him to win the race by over a second. Montella saw his pit board at the start of the last lap saying +0.3, to which he said he thought "Oh fuck" and got his head down.

Yari Montella won the race over a second clear of Adrian Huertas, setting a fastest lap of 1'40.266 on the last lap, with Stefano Manzi four seconds further back. Off the podium, a lonely Lucas Mahias held fourth place with Federico Caricasulo winning the fight for fifth place ahead of Marcel Schroetter, Simone Corsi, Bo Bendsneyder and Glenn van Straalen, a second and a half covering fifth to ninth places.

Adrian Huertas has his first chance to take the title tomorrow with a thirty six point lead. Ducati clinched the World Supersport 2024 manufacturer's title with three races remaining while Stefano Manzi gave Ten Kate their team title.

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