Valentin Debise (EASTROC ZXMOTO Evan Bros Factory) continues to put ZXMOTO at the top of the FIM Supersport World Championship podium after he claimed the Chinese brand’s third win in Race 1 at the Balaton Park Circuit. Debise was running in third on the final lap, even into the final sector, but managed to pass both Can Oncu (Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing) and Albert Arenas (AS BLU CRU Racing Team) to take a stunning, if unexpected, win in the opening race of the Motul Hungarian Round.

The French rider initially put his ZXMOTO 820RR machine sixth on the grid in Tissot Superpole with a 1’42.568s, around half-a-second down on polesitter Arenas. He gained places in the opening couple of laps, moving into fifth on Lap 1 and then fourth on Lap 2, before settling into P4 for most of the race. That became P3 when Roberto Garcia (GMT94 Yamaha) crashed from the lead at Turn 15, but it still looked like the fight for victory would be between Oncu and Arenas.

On Lap 14, the #53 was 1.231s behind Oncu, and by the end of Lap 16, that gap had become 0.402s before extending out by a tenth on the penultimate lap. However, Debise was close enough to capitalise on any error in front of him and he duly did so. Oncu had run deep into Turn 12, the first left-hander in the Turn 12-13-14 complex, putting the #61 off the ideal line for Turn 13 and compromising his exit. Arenas and Debise both took to the outside of the long, sweeping left-hander of Turn 14, as they looked for the inside line into Turn 15. Debise was able to get his braking right to move from P3 to P1 in one fell swoop, claiming a third victory of ZXMOTO’s debut WorldSSP campaign.

Speaking about his last lap move for victory, Debise said: “It was a very tough race. I knew I didn’t have the speed they had, but I was able to be very consistent. At some point they were pulling away. I said to myself, ‘Just keep doing your pace, what you know to do’ and tried to be as consistent as possible. At the end, I was about to come back to them a little bit and then I was thinking that I couldn’t pass everybody on the last lap! I lost too much time in Sector 1 as in every lap. I saw Oncu made a small mistake in the chicane, Albert was a little bit unsure of his line, so I opened my line. In the left corner, they rolled off the throttle a bit whereas I stayed full gas, so I was able to go around them. A bit lucky today but very happy about this win because it was very unexpected!

“At some point, I saw I was falling away from them, and I saw them making not big mistakes, but you see a bit of tension in their riding. I saw them struggling and I felt like I could keep my pace. I was able to do it in a good way. I understood I had a little bit more than them and when you see them making these sorts of mistakes, and the tension goes up in the last laps, it can happen. This time, it happened. Sometimes you wait and they do everything clear, but today they made a mistake. Talking with Oncu, he told me he tried to brake too hard and locked the front.”

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