The third WorldSSP championship round continues at the Dutch track of Assen. Saturday’s track action began with a short warm-up for the Supersport field, in which PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders Kaito Toba and Syarifuddin Azman worked with their technicians to prepare for the first of the weekend WorldSSP races.

Rookie Azman was unable to participate in Superpole on Friday after struggling with arm pump and pain in his right hand during practice. Assessed by doctors both before and after today’s warm-up, the Malaysian was ultimately deemed unfit to compete in the weekend’s races. He will take medical advice once home and put together a plan so as to resolve this issue prior to the next round.

As for the first of the weekend’s Supersport races at Assen, conditions remained dry for the first 18-lapper. Eighteenth on the grid, Toba got off the line without issue, but the race was almost immediately red-flagged following an incident for two other riders. Restarted a short time later, the race was reduced to twelve laps, but unfortunately fortune was not on Toba’s side. A technical problem emerged as the Japanese rider took to the grid for the restart. With no time to resolve this issue back in the garage prior to the start, the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda rider was forced to sit out this first race. 

Syarifuddin Azman #63

“This morning, I was assessed by the doctor who allowed me to do warm-up. But I continued to experience pain during that session and so the doctor took the decision to pass me unfit for the rest of the weekend, for both my own safety and that of the other riders. I will now make a plan with the team and my manager as I need to find a solution to this problem. For sure, I’m not happy but I will come back stronger. A big thanks to the team for all their support and hopefully I will be able to compete at Cremona.”

Kaito Toba #27

“I’m beyond disappointed. In today’s warm up I had good feeling with the bike, and we got close to the top-ten times. But things certainly didn’t go my way in the race. After the red flag we had the quick start procedure and, once I reached the grid, I ran into a technical problem with the bike. I returned as quickly as possible to the box, but there wasn’t enough time to fix the bike. That meant I came away from today’s race empty handed, when we could have had a solid chance to fight inside the points zone.”