The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team is competing in the penultimate Supersport World Championship round at Portugal’s Estoril Circuit with riders Kaito Toba and substitute rider Luca Ottaviani.

A last-minute change sees Italian rider Luca Ottaviani lining up for this weekend’s WorldSSP round at Estoril Circuit in Portugal. The team had previously announced Ibrahim Norrodin as the replacement rider for absent Syarifuddin Azman, but Norrodin is unfortunately unable to travel to Europe due to a COVID-19 quarantine requirement. A flight cancellation meant that Ottaviani was only able to join the team in time for Superpole.

Toba headed out mid-morning on Friday for the one and only free practice. The 40-minute was interrupted with two red flags following incidents for several riders. Despite this, Kaito made a good start, working hard with his team to adapt his CBR600RR to suit the requirements of this technical track. The Japanese rider placed twenty-third at the end of this phase with a 1’41.713. 

Toba immediately improved on his FP times as the afternoon’s Superpole got underway. The session was hotly contested, with the top twenty separated by just one second. Taking a step forward in the final stages, Kaito’s qualifying time was a 1’40.839, which assured him of a spot on the seventh row of the grid for Saturday’s Race 1, in twenty-fourth position. Joining Toba for Superpole, Ottaviani took to the track for the first time. Missing out on the morning’s practice left him with work to do during this crucial qualifying phase. The Italian was nevertheless quick to get up to speed, soon setting times inside the qualifying threshold. Improving on his references lap by lap, Ottaviani started to rebuild confidence around the Estoril circuit. A best of 1’42.083 meant that the Italian qualified in twenty-ninth position for the weekend’s first race.

Kaito Toba #27

“This morning we were having some issues with electronics and gearing, so that slowed us down a bit. In the afternoon we were able to really focus on the set up of the bike and we made progress, though we still have some details to adjust to make the bike feel better. The times here at Estoril are very close and despite the challenges we’re not too far off. We’ll use tomorrow’s warm up to finalise the bike setup and we’ll see how the race goes.”

Luca Ottaviani #12

“I haven’t slept for about 40 hours so I’m pretty tired but it’s all part of racing. At least I got out for Superpole, with no data of course, but I’m happy to be working with the team again.  They did a great job; I’m just sorry I arrived so late. Superpole was our first session, so we’ll need to use warm-up tomorrow to better set up the bike and then hopefully we can find better pace in the race. The goal is to improve session on session and get gradually closer to the front.”