Cycle News

WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP VOL. 51 ISSUE 8 FEBRUARY 25, 2014 P37 Having crashed in practice, fast and heavily, he was maybe not on top form but it was anoth- er, slightly smaller surprise, that Guintoli would be the first Aprilia winner of the 2014 season. Aprilias love Australia, taking all but one podium spot there in 2013. It was a small miracle that the long-term shoulder injury for Guintoli – that saw him only do- ing handfuls of laps in practice – allowed him to race two, even if it was shortened to 14 laps and not the planned 22. "There is not a better place for me to come with the RSV-4 than Australia because it is strong Briefly... would run out before the end of race day in the case of restarted races, but the organizers maintain that the teams simply have to be smarter than they have been with the use of their preferred tires through the four peri- ods of practice. The organizers ex- SPATS AND SPRINTS After a red flag (be- cause of the blown motor on Jack Kennedy's PTR Honda) the first go at the World Supersport race was stopped after seven laps. A five-lap sprint restart was led off by Mahi Racing Team India Kawa- saki's Kenan Sofuoglu, but the World Champion crashed soon after. He was angry after, though many were, with most preferring to just call it a day after the near 10-lap first half version, or re-running it as a full race over 18-laps. It all came down to the final lap with MV Agusta's RC Yakhnich Racing's Jules Cluzel making a hard pass on DMC Panavto Yamaha's Kevin Coghlan, with the latter miscalculating on laps and not putting up much of a fight. That gave MV Agusta its first full World Championship level race win since Giacomo Agostini secured a GP vic- tory at the Nürburgring in 1976. "It was crazy," said Cluzel. "I think I did my real best and made zero mistakes. My last lap was incredible and I did everything I could, and today any little mistake you did means you would finish second, third or fourth. I am really pleased with this win because we had so many problems. You can ask my crew chief. The maximum laps I did until the race was maybe five or six before I had a problem. This is the best win ever. I have 25 points, no points for some top riders, and so now we have one month to work on the bike and it is important. We were a little bit lucky today, but you have to be lucky some- times." Sofuoglu, an absolute shoo-on for the win pre-race (and pre-red flag), was fuming after losing his desired perfect start. "You cannot come to Australia to race for five laps," he said. "I crashed because I wanted to get away from everybody in the restarted race because five laps is an exciting gift to everyone in the field. I crashed and I was out. Anyway I am so disappointed because I was the fastest in practice after all the work we did. I could have won the first race but then they stopped it and called it five laps so everybody went on full attack. Anyway, I crashed and it is very disappointing what happened today after all our good work. Now we go to Aragon for the second round." Coghlan scored his best-ever finish in second, partly because he did not realize there were no more laps to go. But he was still happy. "We cannot ask for much more than that, first time out and on the podium, and already one step better than we did all last year," he said. "The Yamaha is working really well and we have got it to go quick straight off the bat. The race was a bit interesting although I was looking forward to a long race and riding with Kenan because we seemed to hold the tires quite well. The five-lap race was a bit hectic. The biggest mistake on my part is that I thought we had an extra lap to go, so that was not too good! But we've come out of here with 20 points and second in the championship, rather than gravel in our boots like we did last year." Raffaele De Rosa had to pay for his ride, but made it pay by finishing third in Australia. American PJ Jacobsen was going well in the first por- tion of the race and running in the lead group when his Kawasaki suffered a mechanical. MV Agusta's Jules Cluzel gave MV it's first World Championship win since Giacomo Agostini's GP victory at the Nürburgring in 1976. continued on next page

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