The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team and riders Tarran Mackenzie and Zaqhwan Zaidi have rounded out the sixth Superbike World Championship round at Misano World Circuit.

On track at Italy’s Misano World Circuit, the riders completed a brief Sunday morning warm-up before attention turned to the Superpole race. Getting away well from row seven, Mackenzie made a good start to the ten-lap sprint, making up two positions right away and working hard to keep contact with the group immediately ahead. His efforts were unfortunately in vain as a crash on lap four put paid to his chances of making any further progress.

WorldSBK rookie Zaidi ran a consistent race, lapping with better pace than he did in Saturday’s race 1. Making up four places with respect to his starting position, the Malaysian rounded out this sprint race in eighteenth position, collecting more precious data ahead of the weekend’s final 21-lap race.

The afternoon’s race ran in even higher temperatures than Saturday’s Race 1, the 57°C track temperature making for very slippery conditions. Following the morning’s crash, there was not quite sufficient time for the team’s technicians to restore Mackenzie’s bike to a race-ready condition, which meant that Zaidi was the team’s sole representative for the final race. The Malaysian did what he could from twenty-second on the grid, gaining ground also because of crashes for several others. Focusing on his own pace and performance, Zaqhwan crossed the line in seventeenth place, repeating his Race 1 result.

The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team now has a good three weeks in which to ready itself for round seven, scheduled to run at Donington Park in the UK on 11-13 July.

Tarran Mackenzie #95

“It wasn’t our day. The crash during the Superpole race conditioned the rest of Sunday, as although the team worked really hard to fix damage to my bike, there wasn’t quite enough time before Race 2, which meant I was unable to start the last race.”

Zaqhwan Zaidi #21

“We made progress over the course of the weekend, which is positive. Conditions were much hotter than yesterday, but I think overall we improved the race pace today because I see everybody's lap times were slower, so that's quite good in terms of our progress. Anyway I will try to work hard and keep the motivation strong for the next races. Thanks to the whole team for all their hard work in challenging conditions this weekend.”