At the halfway point of the 2025 FIM Supersport 300 World Championship, Benat Fernandez (Team#109 Retro Traffic Kove) holds a slender one-point lead in the title race thanks to his Race 2 win at the Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli”. Fernandez won the race by just 0.009s ahead of Julio Garcia (Prodina Kawasaki Racing Sport) and their fight on the run to the line was effectively a 10-point swing in favour of Fernandez – with the #7 gaining five points and Garcia losing five, with the pair just a point apart.

In Saturday’s Race 1, Fernandez crossed the line in fourth place with Garcia just ahead in third, with 0.021s separating them at the line on this occasion. The pair were effectively inseparable all weekend as they battled, as part of the lead group, for victories and podiums, with their duel in Sunday’s Race 2 epitomising their respective campaigns so far as they go in search of this year’s title.

Sunday’s fight featured a group of 10 riders fighting for the win through the final sector, although Matteo Vannucci (PATA AG Motorsport Italia WorldSSP300) had been in there as well but dropped back after going onto the grass on the back straight. Garcia led out of the final corner and it looked like he might have had enough to take victory. However, Fernandez had other ideas, using the slipstream from Garcia’s Kawasaki machine to full effect to narrowly get ahead on his Kove at the line, with 0.009s separating the two.

That 0.009s margin could be crucial at the end of the season. Garcia went from being on 138 points and nine points clear of Fernandez to being on 133 and one point behind the Basque rider in the blink of an eye – although, of course, there are still four rounds and eight races left. Fernandez and Garcia have built up a small buffer to third-place Jeffrey Buis (Freudenberg KTM-Paligo Racing), on 114 points, with David Salvador (Team ProDina XCI) fourth on 104.

Discussing his Race 2 victory and taking the Championship lead, Fernandez said: “I feel good. The weekend was very important for us because this will help decide the fight for the Championship as it’s the middle of the season. We’re super close to each other. I feel good because I won and I’m first, but we need to keep working. Being Championship leader wasn’t the expectation, but it was our target. Efren knew that I could be fighting at the front and working with the team, and him, I’m able to be at the front in all, or almost all, races. This is not what we expected but it’s okay!”

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