In Aragon (Spain), in the context of World Superbike and Supersport Championships, the first round of European Stock 600 and of European Junior Cup took place.
FIM Europe STK600 Championship
Close fight in the opening round of the FIM Europe STK600 Championship has seen 18 year old Toprak Razgatlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) come on top after an exciting last lap decider saw the Turkish rider notch up his 2nd win in the series, following his win as a wildcard in Magny-Cours last year. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (San Carlo Team Italia) scored his first ever podium with a fine ride to 2nd (+0.060s) with Federico Caricasulo (Pata Honda Junior Team) completing the first podium of the weekend for the STK600 riders (+2.647s).
The 11 lap race, saw the leading riders exchanging positions throughout, with the top 7 locked together, until the final 3 laps when the first two eased away from the chasing pack.
Behind the podium finishers, Gauthier Duwelz (MVR Racing), Niki Tuuli (Kallio Racing) and Guillaume Antiga (MTM – HS Kawasaki) rounded out the top 6.
In the second race, on Sunday, Toprak Razgatlioglu seized his second win of the season, this time in front of Italian Federico Caricasulo and Belgian Gauthier Duwelz.
European Junior Cup
Last year’s Pata European Junior Cup, powered by Honda runner-up Javier Orellana (Europe Foods) has overcome fierce competition to claim victory in the opening race of 2015 at MotorLand Aragon. The 17-year-old from Alicante, Spain edged out Paolo Grassia (MVR Racing Team) by only 0.028 at the line, with fellow Italian Emanuele Pusceddu (SK & Itaba Moto) completing the podium.
During practice on Friday Pusceddu suffered a crash and although was declared fit to race was carrying an injury going into today, but was still able to be challenging for the win.
Fourth place finisher Mika Perez had an impressive ride and led the pack for most of the race and looked to be taking the win. With three laps left the pack at the front closed and the Spaniard lost time and settled to fourth. Fifth place went to Hannes Soomer and the fastest Brit during the race was Stefan Hill who crossed the line in 14th place.
Meanwhile in the FIM Europe Women’s European Championship Avalon Biddle took the win and finished overall in 13th position. Biddle was also the fastest female in qualifying in 17th. At the start of the race the New Zealand rider was caught up in a first corner crash and lost time but soon made her way up the pack to win the women’s race and overall placed 13th.
Anastassia Kovalenko was the second fastest female and finished overall in 21st, and Laura Rodriguez finished one place behind in 22nd. Rodriguez had a brave race after crashing out in yesterdays qualifying and was still in some pain during the race. Viktoria Kis had a promising ride before crashing out on the fourth lap, where she was holding 18th position. Kis had qualified in 26th place.
