Staged at Motorland Aragón in Spain, the tenth Supersport World Championship round has now drawn to a close for the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team. The team’s three riders, Kaito Toba, Syarifuddin Azman and wildcard Ibrahim Norrodin experienced mixed fortunes in Sunday’s Race 2.

With all three riders having run a very consistent Race 1, they were hungry for more in today’s second and final race. A brief warm-up allowed them to make any changes to their CBR600RR machines, after which the team turned its attention to preparing for the 15-lap race.

Getting underway at 12.35 local time (CET), the race ran in dry, sunny conditions but it was an unlucky one for Toba. From twenty-first, the Japanese rider was lying twenty-third through the first laps. Having moved to the front of his respective group, Toba did his best to up the pace so as to close in on the group ahead. On lap eight, his progress was unfortunately thwarted by a crash at tun 8. Though unhurt, Toba was unable to rejoin the race. Teammate Syarifuddin made a convincing start, gaining two positions on lap one to place twenty-seventh. Able to stick with his closest rivals, the Malaysian kept a cool head as he worked to put in consistently fast lap times. Running within a few tenths of the two riders ahead of him, rookie Azman fought hard to make up further ground, making up five places in all to complete the race P22. Ibrahim approached Race 2 in a similar way to Saturday’s first race, the young wildcard focused on building confidence with the CBR600RR, gaining experience, and providing the team with valuable feedback. Though unable to match the pace of the riders up ahead, Norrodin ran a steady race, avoiding mistakes and gaining three positions to bring his bike home in twenty-eighth position. 

Following this tenth WorldSSP round, Toba’s tally of 12 championship points puts him twenty-fifth in the general standings, while Azman is yet to score. The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team will now prepare for the season finale, a doubleheader made up of rounds at Portugal’s Estoril Circuit, on 10-12 October, and at Spain’s Jerez Circuit, on 17-19 October.

Syarifuddin Azman #63

“I want to say a big thanks to the team for working so hard to make me more confident on the bike. Like yesterday, it was hard along the back straight, but I tried to maintain my pace, quicker today than in Race 1. I’m quite happy to finish P22 but we need to keep working so that we can continue to improve the results.”

Kaito Toba #27

“We used the warmup to try to improve the front end feeling. In the race, I lost a couple of positions at the start, but I was soon able to recover them. I was suffering along the long straights but then making up ground in the mixed part of the track. I was part of a group that went all the way up to twelfth position and was pushing to move through the field when unfortunately, the front locked, and that ended my race. We’ll give it another go in Estoril in two weeks’ time.”

Ibrahim Norrodin #67

“My data guy made a change on the bike with respect to Race 1 and I could already feel the difference in warmup. I was able to make a good start to the race and felt that the setup was definitely better. I was able to set my fastest lap time of the whole weekend too. Thanks to the team for doing such a good job. I know the outright race result is not great, but we did our best all weekend and I felt that we made progress day by day.”