The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team has three riders on track at Magny-Cours for this ninth round of the Supersport World Championship. Kaito Toba, Syarifuddin Azman and wildcard Ibrahim Norrodin all headed out this morning for a brief but very important warm-up session, a final opportunity to make changes and prepare for the afternoon’s race. With only time to complete five laps each, the trio checked that they were comfortable with the setup of their CBR600RR machines ahead of Race 1.

Thanks to Friday’s Superpole results, Toba and Azman lined up on the ninth and tenth row of the grid respectively for the Race 1. Wildcard Norrodin started from row eleven, having set a valid qualifying time in morning warm-up. Having lost most of the Superpole session due to a crash, Toba also received a long lap penalty, which he was forced to serve at the start of today’s race.

Running over 19 laps, today’s race started on time, in sunny conditions. Toba initially placed twenty-sixth before dropping to thirtieth after serving his penalty, while teammates Azman and Norrodin were lying twenty-eighth and thirty-first. Demonstrating good pace, Kaito pushed to gain the lost ground, slowly working his way up through the field to reach twenty-second by the mid-race point. A hard-working Azman and Norrodin also made progress over the first half of this 19-lapper, moving into twenty-fourth and twenty-seventh place. Toba looked on course for a seventeenth-place finish but unfortunately a crash in the final stages prevented him from crossing the line. A disappointing end considering all his efforts to make up the ground lost due to the long-lap penalty. Azman was able to climb to final twenty-first position, followed by wildcard Norrodin, twenty-fourth, both riders having made good progress over the course of the weekend’s first race.

Kaito Toba #27

“In this morning’s warm up we made some tweaks to the bike set up. I was able to improve my times, but still didn’t feel as if we’d identified the best solution. The lack of track time and resulting lack of data definitely doesn’t help, so we’re still trying to find the best compromise for this track. In the race I had to start from the back of the grid and serve a long lap penalty. Once that was out of the way, I started my comeback and moved up as far as seventeenth. But then with just a couple of laps to go I crashed out and could not rejoin. We’ll try again tomorrow and see how things go.”

Syarifuddin Azman #63

“I’m not particularly happy with today’s performance because I didn’t have the right feeling on the bike and struggled particularly through the chicane. The team has been working really hard to try and give me more confidence and we’ll continue to see what we can do, also in tomorrow’s warm up, so that I can be more comfortable and do my best in Race 2.”

Ibrahim Norrodin #67

“Race 1 was tough. I started from P31 on the grid and my start was pretty good but I felt I had a few complications with the setup during the race. It didn’t really work for me, so we will see what we can change ahead of tomorrow’s race, when I’ll try to do my best to improve.”