The seventh Supersport World Championship round is now underway at Donington Park in the UK, where the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team is competing with riders Kaito Toba and Luca Ottaviani.

The two riders were out on track on Friday morning for an important practice. Substitute rider Ottaviani has never ridden at the British track until now and does not know the CBR600RR, so was keen to make full use of the free practice session. Experienced rider Toba was equally eager to exploit this phase and prepare as well as possible for the subsequent Superpole. Both riders made gradual progress throughout the practice. By the end of this session, and having made a few setup modifications along the way, the Japanese rider was lying twenty-sixth with a 1’31.766. Italian rider Ottaviani worked systematically, aware that he has much to learn in a very limited timeframe. His fastest practice time, a 1’32.242, saw him place thirtieth.

WorldSSP Superpole ran in the afternoon, in hot and sunny conditions. Qualifying did not get off to a good start for Ottaviani, who suffered a crash in the opening stages that caused the session to be red flagged. The Italian rider was fortunately unhurt, but significant damage to his bike meant that Luca was unable to return to the track and complete a valid qualifying lap. Once the session resumed a short time later, Toba did his best to fly the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda flag in the time remaining. Working hard and able to take almost one second off his best practice time, the Japanese rider set a best of 1’30.725. This reference means that Kaito will line up in twenty-first position on Saturday’s race grid.

Kaito Toba #27

“It’s been an unexpectedly hot day here at Donington Park. We started off with a few ideas that we came up with during the Balaton test, so we spent most of the morning session focusing on the set up. We managed to find a base that worked in time for Superpole, and I got to improve on my lap times, while the feeling on the bike was pretty good. The conditions were tricky at the end of the session so I couldn’t take a further step. That said, I know there is still some margin and we will work hard to make it happen tomorrow.”

Luca Ottaviani #12

“Day one got off to a good start as I set to work with a new bike and a new team at a track I’ve never seen before. This afternoon we had planned to test some new solutions that could help me adapt to the bike, but on my first lap a rider crashed ahead of me. This caused another rider to brake hard in front of me, and I collided with them and went down. Fortunately, I’m not hurt but unfortunately there wasn’t time for me to return to the track. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”