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Opening day of WSS action in Thailand sees Smith on top

Friday, 20 March 2015 07:41 GMT

    • New circuit provides close Supersport times on day one.

    After an extended FP1 in which American PJ Jacobsen (Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres) was fastest, this afternoon’s 45 minute FP2 saw Kyle Smith (Pata Honda WSS Team) emerge on top of the combined classification courtesy of a 1.38.490s lap time.

    With ambient temperatures touching almost 40 degrees Celsius the times this afternoon were not as fast as many had expected, but nevertheless, almost all of the riders improved on their personal best times with Smith the best of the improvers. The British rider overhauled the FP1 best that was set by Jacobsen to head the combined times, and will go into tomorrow’s FP3 and sole qualifying session with an advantage of 0.102s over Jacobsen who remained in P2 courtesy of his 1.38.592s from earlier in the day. New father Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) moved into 3rd position overall in the final 5 minutes despite a number of off track excursions.

    Championship leader after Australia Jules Cluzel (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) endured a similar fate as in the opening round, the Frenchman suffering a technical problem on his second lap of FP1. Ever jovial, he joked in between sessions that it hadn’t affected the race weekend too much in Phillip Island, before posting the 4th fastest time this afternoon to move ahead of Thai rider Ratthapark Wilairot (CORE Motorsport Thailand) and Gino Rea (CIA Landlords Insurance Honda) who were 5th and 6th.

    Lucas Mahias (Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres), Lorenzo Zanetti (MV Agusta Reparto Corse), Martin Cardenas (CIA Landlords Insurance Honda) and Marco Faccani (San Carlo Puccetti Racing) completed the top ten.

    Ratthapong Wilairot (A.P Honda Racing Thailand) missed the morning session but regrouped to finish a respectable 13th overall ahead of team mate and former Moto2 regular Thitipong Warokorn who was 17th on his WSS debut.

    Chalermpol Polomai (Yamaha Thailand Racing Team) and Fabio Menghi (VFT Racing) were the only two fallers in FP1 and FP2 respectively. Both were unhurt.

    Riccardo Russo (CIA Landlords Insurance Honda) had the accolade of being the first ever rider in International competition to record a timed lap of the Chang International circuit, albeit more than 8 seconds slower than the time the riders eventually improved to. Russo would eventually further improve his own initial benchmark by over 6 seconds to elevate himself to 11th in the classification after the opening day.