On track at Motorland Aragón in Spain for round ten of the Supersport World Championship, riders Kaito Toba, Khairul Idham Pawi and wildcard Azroy Hakeem took part in a brief warm-up before the day’s main event. During the ten-minute warm-up session, Pawi in particular was able to pick up the pace with respect to his best times of Friday, while all three riders worked to make final adjustments to the setup of their CBR600RR machinery. 

The first of the weekend’s 15-lap Supersport races kicked off as scheduled at 3.15pm, in dry but windy conditions. From row seven, Toba was in eighteenth as the race got underway. With the points zone very much in his sights, the Japanese rider worked hard to establish a good rhythm and gained one position fairly easily. It then became more of a challenge to catch the riders ahead, but Kaito was not giving up and moved into fifteenth on lap twelve. A drop in tyre performance in the final stages unfortunately denied him a points finish today, but the Japanese rider did his best to manage the situation and conclude eighteenth. 

Pawi made a good start from row nine, making up several places to position twenty-second through the first turns. Battling with his closest rivals through the early part of the race, Khairul was able to maintain similar pace to that of team-mate Kaito. Less than a second outside the top twenty, the rider continued to push, eventually crossing the line in twenty-first place. 

Hakeem began his very first WorldSSP race from the eleventh row of the grid and was quickly able to make up ground, battling his way through the first corners and moving up into twenty-sixth place. Part of a group of four of five riders, wildcard Azroy then slipped back a little, lying thirtieth for a good part of the race. Despite suffering with some shoulder pain, the Malaysian maintained focus and avoided mistakes to complete his debut Supersport race in twenty-eighth position. 

Kaito Toba 

“It wasn’t an easy race. I’m glad we finished, especially after last weekend at Cremona, but our target was to at least reach the points. My start was alright, and I managed to stay at the back of the main group. I was still having some issues with the front of the bike, so I had to be careful to avoid crashing. By the last third of the race, I was up into the points, but unfortunately my tyres were worn out by the last couple of laps. I couldn’t defend my position as I had to slow my pace. We now have some valuable data for tomorrow though, and I’m hoping we can find something that helps us to be more competitive at the end of the race.” 

Khairul Idham Pawi 

“Today’s race was not so bad and I’m generally quite happy. Our performance was definitely a step forward compared to yesterday and hopefully we can continue in this direction tomorrow in race 2 – it would be great if we could get closer to the points zone.” 

Azroy Hakeem 

“I’m happy for today because I improved a lot compared to yesterday. It’s still not enough though, and we want to see if we can do more for Race 2. I had a few issues with my shoulder today too; it was little painful in the race. Anyway, hopefully tomorrow we can do a bit more to try and stick with the group ahead.”