EUGENE LAVERTY led from start to finish to convincingly win a re-started opening round of the World Supersport Championship at Phillip Island in Australia with team-mate Miguel Praia taking an excellent career-best equalling ninth for the Parkalgar Honda team.
Parkalgar Honda goes home for round two of the Championship to the Parkalgar circuit in Portugal in one month’s time on March 28th.
Eugene: “It was a pretty easy race after a tough weekend trying to match the pace of Lascorz and Sofuoglu. Those guys can put in a quick lap but we knew we had the consistency and this morning we managed to improve the race set-up of my CBR600RR a bit more. Thank you to my Parkalgar Honda team for all its hard work, it has paid off - thank you also to Pirelli for an excellent tyre that worked well for me all weekend and never missed a beat. I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season and am looking forward to going to our home circuit in Portugal as the leader of the World Championship - a first in my career.”
Miguel: “My position was not so bad but I definitely thought I could have competed for a higher finish. The re-start didn’t help because it was difficult to see going through the concrete dust that was laid on the oil. I pushed as hard as I could but the lap times were slower than expected and I ended up in a fight with DiSalvo for the whole race. I ran wide at the Hairpin and then couldn’t get him back. This is my best equal result and now I go to Portimao and my home race with strong points and with a lot of data to improve our performance. The Pirelli tyre is good but I also need to work more on getting the best from it. I am calling all the Portuguese fans to join me and Eugene at Parkalgar to support us, I want Eugene to win and to get in the top five myself.”
Simon Buckmaster, Parkalgar Honda Team Manager: “That was a brilliant race win by Eugene and a well-deserved top 10 for Miguel. Well done to the Parkalgar Honda team for working so hard, they did a great job. While others went for fast single lap times we concentrated on our own strategy and it paid off. I do not expect the next races to be so easy and we will go back to the PTR workshops and continue to develop our Parkalgar Honda race bikes. Thank you to all our loyal sponsors and none of us can wait to get to our own Parkalgar circuit in Portugal for the second round; we will be doing all we can to deliver the goods there for our main sponsor and circuit owner Parkalgar.”
Race Result
1 50 Laverty E. (IRL) PARKALGAR HONDA CBR600RR 33′37.836 (166,536 kph)
2 26 Lascorz J. (ESP) Kawasaki ZX-6R 4.359
3 54 Sofuoglu K. (TUR) Honda CBR600RR 4.500
4 25 Salom D. (ESP) Triumph Daytona 675 11.779
5 99 Foret F. (FRA) Kawasaki ZX-6R 17.266
6 55 Roccoli M. (ITA) Honda CBR600RR 25.034
7 127 Harms R. (DEN) Honda CBR600RR 27.834
8 40 DiSalvo J. (USA) Triumph Daytona 675 30.102
9 117 Praia M. (POR) PARKALGAR HONDA CBR600RR 31.931
10 4 Rea G. (GBR) Honda CBR600RR 31.991.
Championship Positions
1: Laverty PARKALGAR HONDA 25
2: Lascorz 20
3: Sofuoglu 16
4: Salom 13
5: Foret 11
6: Roccoli 10
7: Harms 9
8: DiSalvo 8
9: Praia PARKALGAR HONDA 7
10: Rea 6.
