Another thrilling battle in the FIM Yamaha R3 BLU CRU World Cup saw Italy’s Emanuele Pastore take a debut victory in Race 1, with Leandro Marques (Brazil) and Hinata Okada (Japan) taking to the podium for the first time in second and third respectively.
It was a strong start from polesitter and championship leader Xarly Mendez (Dominican Republic) to lead into Turn 1, but as is the norm in R3 Cup, he was unable to get away at the front with Japan’s Riichi Takahira not wasting any time in getting past on the opening lap.
A lead group of over ten riders formed in the following laps for yet another frenetic R3 Cup battle. A three-bike incident brought out the yellow flags on the second lap, as Mauro Gomez (Spain), Heitor Santana (Brazil) and Kakeru Okunuki (Japan) came together and crashed out of the race.
The race would be decided on the final lap, with Pastore leading out of the final corner and getting the drag to the line to beat Marques by just 0.077 seconds with the top ten split by less than a second.
After a strong opening lap, Takahira took fourth ahead of countryman Rintaro Takemoto (Japan) with podium-finisher last time out Alessandro Binder (Switzerland) crossing the line sixth.
Chris Clark (USA) was seventh ahead of Mendez, who maintains his championship lead by eight points with an eighth place finish. Jean Kento Turner (Japan) and Angelo Mottola (Italy) rounded out the top ten.
Having set the fastest lap of the race, Hinata Okada (Japan) will line-up on pole position for Race 2 on Sunday, ahead of Salvatore Germano (Italy) and Nathan Bettencourt (USA). Lights go out for the second race of the weekend at 10:10 local time, and the race can be streamed live on the Yamaha Racing YouTube channel here.
Emanuele Pastore said: “It was a crazy race, there was a lot of over-taking! In the last lap I managed to be in a good position and I exited from the last corner in first position and managed to win. I am so happy, I’d like to thank my family and my team and everyone who supports me from home. We will try again tomorrow!”
Click HERE to see the Race 1 result and HERE for the Race 2 grid