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The official race report service of Kawasaki Racing Team.

3 June 2023

Mahias Into The Top Ten

Kawasaki Puccetti Racing rider Lucas Mahias earned a tenth place finish in the opening WorldSSP race at Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, once more competing as a stand-in for the injured team regular, Can Öncü.

In the pre-race Superpole Qualifying session Mahias placed seventh from the 32 riders on show, starting the first race from the third row of the grid.

After a clean start Lucas was in a good position in the very early stages but he got passed by some rivals before reasserting himself in the later stages of the race.

He ended up in a final battle with fellow Kawasaki rider, Adrian Huertas (MTM Kawasaki), who finished just one place behind Mahias, in 11th position. They were separated by just 0.160 seconds at the flag.

The opening WorldSSP race on Saturday was the only one of the major events to reach the planned full race distance - in this case 18 laps.

Lucas Mahias, stated: “In Superpole I was very happy with the lap time because it put me in seventh position. That was much better than my previous Superpole performance in Barcelona last time. Before the race I was a little bit scared because my lap time was good for qualifying but I knew I did not have the same kind of rhythm for the race. After a good start I was in fifth or sixth position. I was happy to be there but I was a little bit too relaxed in the three opening laps, and a lot of aggressive riders passed me, pushing me outside of the racing line. I needed five laps to find the rhythm and understand the bike so that I could push more. At the of the race it was not so bad, but I need more race time to be more aggressive in the beginning. If I can be fast in this area it is possible to play for the top five in the next couple of races.”

John McPhee (Vince64 by Puccetti Racing Kawasaki) qualified 19th in Superpole but was riding in fifteenth place until crashing with two laps remaining. He recovered to 19th position, one place ahead of Yuta Okaya (Prodina Kawasaki Racing).

Tom Booth-Amos (Motozoo ME AIR Racing Kawasaki) had a technical issue that would eventually end his race. Luke Power (Motozoo ME AIR Racing Kawasaki) was a non-starter, being pushed off the back of the grid just before the race started.

The second WorldSSP race will take place at Misano on Sunday 4 June, this time at 12.30 local time.

                                                 #NinjaSpirit