Competing in round four of the WorldSSP championship at Italy’s Cremona Circuit, PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders Toba and Zaidi took to the track for a short warm-up on Saturday morning, during which they made some final checks prior to the first of the weekend’s races. 

Saturday afternoon’s Race 1 ran over a distance of 20 laps in dry, sunny conditions. Eighteenth on the starting grid, Toba made up one place early on, before crashing on lap three, at Turn 2. Though unhurt, the Japanese rider was sadly unable to rejoin the race, having gone down in the gravel. From thirty-second, rookie Azman climbed to twenty-seventh over the first few laps, doing well to avoid being caught up in any of the accidents occurring around him. Twenty-sixth at the mid-race point, the Malaysian held this position to the line.

Sunday’s second WorldSSP race will round out this fourth round for the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team, its riders both eager to conclude the weekend with a positive race result.

Kaito Toba #27

“The morning looked promising - cooler temperatures in the warmup meant we had better conditions on track, and the feeling on used tyres was quite good. In the race I defended my starting position through the first few turns and then started to move up and work my way towards the points zone. Unfortunately, though, just a few laps into the race I lost the front and crashed out at turn 2. The feeling with the bike was good, so I did not have any warning sign to prevent this. We’ll check all the data ahead of tomorrow and do our best in race 2.”

Syarifuddin Azman #63

“Thanks to the whole team, as they’ve worked really hard to help me. During the race I was feeling pretty good early on as I worked to stick with the group. I’m still struggling a little with the bike, to be honest, but I tried to limit the gap to the group ahead. I’m not happy with the final result, P26, and will keep working with the team to understand how we can improve the bike, particularly the front end, so that I can do my best to score a good result in race 2 tomorrow.”