Frenchman Jules Cluzel took a marvelous second place at the opening Yamaha Finance Australian Round in the FIM Supersport World Championship. The three-time WorldSSP runner-up qualified third on the grid, the 17-time race winner led into Turn 1 for the first time but was soon past at the end of the opening lap by fellow Yamaha riders Randy Krummenacher (BARDAHL Evan Bros. WorldSSP Team) and his teammate, Federico Caricasulo.

In the mandatory pit-stop, Cluzel made a position on Federico Caricasulo, who experienced issues during the stop. Unable to close down Krummenacher in the second half of the race like had partially achieved in the first half, second was the best that Cluzel could hope for. This is Cluzel’s best start to a WorldSSP season since he won at Phillip Island back in 2015.

Cluzel said “For me, these were good points. We train a lot with the team and they are perfect in this case, so congratulations to them. I made a small mistake because I was a little bit too quick when I released the pit-lane limiter but at the end, we still finish second and this is perfect!”

Cluzel then went on to speak about the hard opposition in WorldSSP in 2019, explaining how hard it was to compete with Randy Krummenacher and Federico Caricasulo: “I cannot imagine finishing second without something that can happen to BARDAHL Evan Bros. guys. They were really quick this weekend, too quick for us but at least to finish in front of one of them, it’s perfect. It is a good weekend at the end.”

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