After missing out on victories in five consecutive FIM Supersport World Championship races prior to race 1 at the Autodrom Most, South African rider Steven Odendaal (Evan Bros. WorldSSP Yamaha Team) returned to the top step of the rostrum at the Tissot Czech Round with a hard-fought victory in Race 1 as he looked to close the gap to Dominique Aegerter (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) in the Championship standings.

Odendaal qualified in seventh place for both Race 1 and Race 2 in the Tissot Superpole session after a difficult Superpole, finishing four tenths back from Aegerter. The 28-year-old was able to battle his way through the field to take the lead of the race on Lap 4, and remained there until the end of the race which came on Lap 12 after Red Flags were deployed; with two-thirds race distance hit, full points were awarded meaning Odendaal gained 12 points on Aegerter in the Championship.

“I’m very happy with this victory because we’ve been going through a bit of a race time in the last couple of races. Really unlucky in some places. Very happy to take this victory, unfortunately, it was under Red Flag. It doesn’t feel like a full victory, but I believe I had a little bit more in the end. Quite happy to walk away with the victory. To be honest, I haven’t thought about that. Like I said, I really want to focus race-by-race and not let the Championship get into my head. This is the most important thing, to take as many victories as I can.”

Odendaal lost some of the points he gained over Aegerter in Race 1 when the Swiss rider claimed victory in Race 2, but with Odendaal coming home in second place it meant the South African rider had a net gain over Aegerter in the Championship battle, reducing the gap from 44 points to 37, with Aegerter on 207 points compared to Odendaal’s 170.

Discussing Race 2, where he once again had to battle back from seventh on the grid and dropped to ninth in the early stages, Odendaal said: “Overall, it was a good weekend with first and second. I wanted the number one in Race 2. I was a little bit nervous on the grid because we decided to go with the hard rear tyre. We hadn’t ridden with that tyre all weekend except for FP1. I was just a little bit not in my rhythm and made a couple of mistakes in the beginning of the race which led me to drop back to ninth position. That wasn’t great because I had to catch up a lot of space. Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch Dominique right at the end.”

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