The tenth round of the 2025 Supersport World Championship is now underway at Motorland Aragón in Spain. Just as it did at the latest French round, the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team again fields wildcard Ibrahim Norrodin, who joins permanent entries Kaito Toba and Syarifuddin Azman.

On track in cool but sunny conditions this morning, the trio of riders did their best to exploit the 40-minute practice. Japanese rider Toba made some useful changes to the setup pf his CBR600RR during the course of the session, setting a fastest time of 1’54.517 in the closing stages to position nineteenth. Rookie Azman focused on getting to grips with a track he has not visited for a number of years. Putting in a 1’56.134 right at the end of this first phase, the Malaysian placed twenty-seventh. As he takes on this latest WorldSSP challenge, wildcard Norrodin set out to harness the experience gained aboard the Honda Supersport machine during the Magny-Cours weekend. Having refamiliarized himself with a track he last visited two years, ago, Ibrahim closed thirty-third with a reference of 1’58.750.

The Superpole qualifying session ran later in the day, in significantly higher temperatures. All three PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders worked hard to improve their confidence and feeling, while also striving for the fastest possible qualifying times. Improving on his time by almost a full second, Toba qualified twenty-first, only half a second from the tenth-placed rider, with a 1’53.650. Azman also took a step with respect to practice, completing his fastest lap in 1’55.340 and qualifying thirtieth as a result. Wildcard Norrodin continued to make progress, the rider gradually improving on his lap times. Shaving 1.5 seconds off his morning’s best, the Malaysian closed in thirty-third position with a time of 1’57.248. 

Kaito Toba #27

"We completed a long run in practice, focusing on engine performance and on the feeling with my bike here at Aragón. In the last few minutes we tried a time attack to be ready for the afternoon, and also to check the performance of the bike when pushing for a hot lap. In Superpole, we used the first part of the session to make some tweaks to the setting. Although we haven’t placed as high as I’d hoped, I have to say that the time we set is not too bad. We’re just over one second off pole position, which is not a bad sign overall. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”

Syarifuddin Azman #63

“I haven’t been here for six years, so I don’t have any recent references at all. The conditions were a bit too cool for our practice, but I was feeling really good in that session. My team then made a couple of changes during the Superpole; I didn’t like the setup quite as much, so we’ll keep working to find a good solution for warm-up tomorrow. I’m happy with the work the team’s been doing and the progress we’ve made; now we’ll see if we can do more tomorrow.”

Ibrahim Norrodin #67

“I hadn’t been here for a couple of years, and the track has been resurfaced since then too, so a bit different. As for today, I felt I’ve made a good step and am happy with the progress made during the day. We’re still looking for the best solution in terms of bike setup and I’ve struggled in some areas, but I want to thank my data technician and the whole team for giving me a comfortable bike for Superpole. I achieved the target I’d set myself for that qualifying session, and now we’ll focus on tomorrow.”