Kenan Sofuoglu (Mahi Racing Team India Kawasaki) looked set to convert his pre-race domination to a race win at Phillip Island but a crash in the final running of the race left him out of the points.

Since his debut WSS year it was the first time that Sofuoglu did not score points in the opening race of the season. Moreover, the three time World Supersport Champion had always finished in the top-3 at Phillip Island when not crashing (the only other time he fell was in 2006, when the Australian Round was the second event on the calendar).

The Turk was in the fight at the front of the first attempted race, but after less than ten laps of the scheduled 18 the red flags came out to stop the action after another rider’s machine lost its oil.

After a long delay to clean up the oil a complete new race, over only five laps, was called by the race organisers. Kenan, who was anxious to get away from the hordes of riders who felt this very short race format would give them a greater opportunity to win, fell while leading. He was unable to restart and now looks to the next round in Aragon to score his first points of 2014.

Kenan Sofuoglu: “You cannot come to Australia to race for five laps. I crashed because I wanted to get away from everybody in the restarted race because five laps is an exciting gift to everyone in the field. Anyway, I am so disappointed because I was the fastest in practice after all the good work we did. I could have won the first race but then they stopped it and called for a five lap race, so everybody went on full attack. Anyway, I crashed and it is very disappointing after doing so well in practice and qualifying. Now we go to Aragon for the second round.”