Saturday at Misano not without its challenges for Pawi and Toba
The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team has completed the first race making up round four of the 2024 Supersport World Championship, crossing the line twenty-first with Pawi, and twenty-sixth with Toba.
Earlier in the day, the riders had a brief warm-up session in which to make some final setup modifications ahead of the afternoon’s first race. At the end of this ten-minute phase, Pawi placed twenty-eighth and Toba thirty-first.
At 3.15 pm local time (CET) and in much hotter conditions (air temp. 29°C, track temp. 44°C), the pair was back out for Supersport Race 1. Lining up on the ninth and eleventh rows of the grid, in twenty-fifth and thirty-first position respectively, Kaito and Khairul each made up a position through lap one. Several crashes for other riders saw the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda duo make up further ground, moving into twentieth and twenty-fourth place by lap four. Appearing to lose ground on lap eight, Toba elected to pit on lap nine due to a technical issue. He did return to the track to complete the race but ultimately crossed the line in twenty-sixth position. His Malaysian team-mate Pawi made good progress during the first half of the race, moving up into twenty-first, a position he did well to defend all the way to the end of this first 18-lap Supersport race.
Tomorrow will see the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders return to the Misano World Circuit for the second and final Supersport race of this fourth championship round.
Khairul Idham Pawi WorldSSP Rider #89
"In the race, I was struggling with some chattering on corner entry, but it was already a bit better than it had been earlier in the day. We’ve learned a lot today anyway and now just need to find a way to demonstrate better pace in the race. We’ll try to find something that can give us better feeling at the rear and see what we can do tomorrow.”"
Kaito Toba WorldSSP Rider #27
"In today’s warm up we tried to find a solution to some challenges that we’re facing with the power management of the bike. As the race got underway, the pace wasn’t too bad; we were consistent, and I was able to lap in 1’39. But I decided to pit in order to try another solution with the team, as we want to make the most of the track time to improve our performance. Things were better after we made a change, so I’m hopeful for tomorrow. We still need to review everything and find the best way forward, but I’m confident we can make it."
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