the first time, Rafaelle De Rosa.
His wet front and intermedi-
ate rear may have been the best
compromise, because his clos-
ing speed on the top riders was
awesome to behold.
De Rosa led until the margin-
ally faster Yamaha of Odendaal
passed him into the final curve.
Behind the top two, Jules Clu-
zel, who had to start from the
back row of the grid because his
rear tire was just a little unpres-
surised, came through for third—
another amazing feat of arms
on a day when fortunes arrived
or went on tire choices as well
as undoubted skill and old-fash-
ioned guts.
before him recently. He only
won by 0.099 seconds from old
WorldSSP masters Ten Kate and
their Swiss rider Dominique Ae-
gerter, again on an R6 Yamaha.
Third was Kawasaki Puccetti
rider Philipp Ottl, earning his
team their 100th podium finish
since the moved to all classes
of racing inside the global pad-
dock.
In race two held in the wet,
tires were again all, as those on
full wets eventually had to give
way to those on drier choices.
Odendaal won again, by just
0.100 of a second from the
seemingly unlikely Orelac racing
VerdNatura Kawasaki rider for
WorldSSP
With two of the most recent
WorldSSP Champions "heading
upstairs" to WorldSBK racing
in 2021, there is a lot of interest
to see who will take over the
middleweight championship of
the world. So far it looks like
South African Steven Odendaal.
It was a drama and over-drama
in the first WorldSSP race of the
weekend, as Steven Odendaal's
first race win in this class was
his first podium in WorldSSP
ever. He took the seemingly all-
conquering Evan Bros Bardahl
Yamaha R6 to a race win just
like many others have done
ROAD RACE
FIM WORLDSBK CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 1 / MAY 21-23, 2021
MOTORLAND ARAGON / TERUEL, SPAIN
P84
Topak Razgatlioglu
leads Tom Sykes (66),
Bautista and Leon
Haslam (91). The Turkish
rider would take a third
in race one and a pair
of sixth places in the
Superpole race and
race two.
