The third round of the Supersport World Championship at the TT Circuit Assen has drawn to an unfortunate close for the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team, its rider Kaito Toba coming away empty handed after crashing in the final stages of Race 2. Toba was the squad's sole representative in the weekend’s races after team-mate Syarifuddin Azman was ruled unfit to compete due to pain resulting from arm pump.

Another brief warm-up was unfortunately of little benefit as it ran in full wet conditions, which meant that most riders, Toba included, chose not to ride in the risky conditions. Fortunately, the weekend’s second and final Supersport race ran in the dry (air temp. 16°C, track temp. 25°C). Eighteenth off the line, Kaito battled hard mid-field, gradually making up positions as he aimed for the points zone. Up to fifteenth with time to spare, the Japanese rider was within tenths of his closest rivals when he suffered a crash on the penultimate lap, the incident putting paid to all his hard work up to that point. Fortunately, Toba was unhurt, though he was understandably disappointed with the outcome of Sunday’s race.

With round three now complete, Toba places twentieth in the general standings with 9 points, while rookie Azman is yet to score. The Supersport World Championship will continue in three weeks’ time, on 2-4 May, when the Cremona Circuit in Italy will stage round four.

Kaito Toba #27

“I had solid pace in today’s race, though I was having issues with the front of the bike. I made a comeback lap by lap, fighting for a spot in the points zone. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any data from yesterday’s race, so we couldn’t predict the bike’s behavior in the last few laps. My race ended with a crash on the penultimate lap. It’s frustrating to leave Assen empty handed, when we had the opportunity to fight close to the top ten.”