Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/342674
WORLD SUPERBIKE WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 8/JULY 6, 2014 AUTODROMO DO ALGARVE/PORTIMAO, PORTUGAL P104 WIN FOUR FOR VAN DER MARK It was a good weekend to be Dutch - anywhere. With their football team winning through to the semi-final of the World Cup in Brazil, a day later they saw another glory day for the bike crazy Netherlanders in Portimao. Pata Honda's Michael van der Mark has taken a real step up in his second year of World Supersport life and yet again he gave an even greater perfor- mance than anybody expected. His win, after some fights with other riders (and taking until lap seven to get to the lead) was impressive. Even if the race was cut short by rain. The results were called on lap 12 and therefore he won by 1.649 seconds – for his fourth win of the year. Van der Mark is not lacking confi- dence, as well as points. "This weekend we have been strong all the way through in every session and together with Kenan [Sofuoglu], we were a step ahead of everyone," said van der Mark after his win. "Yesterday morning I did a race simulation, which was incredibly fast. Because of the weather it was a bit of a gamble with the tires, then it was quite good, until held up a bit by Jules [Cluzel]. I got past him and then Kenan made a mistake by himself so it was easy to pass him. I kept pushing because I knew I could do a 1:45.6 easily. It had rained two laps before they called the race finished, but I could still push… But on the last lap it was raining too much and then they put out the red flag. I did not want to crash when I saw Jules was not in the points anymore. I think today nobody could beat us. I feel sorry for Jules, but that is racing." This time around the main man he had to fight was Kawasaki Mahi Racing Team India's Kenan Sofuoglu - for a time at least. Sofuoglu's a rider who's had several issues to deal with off track due to team financial issues, and ter- rible bad luck in some races in 2014. Sofuoglu was so anxious to pass riders today when he was in the leading mix that he ran off track twice and had to fight back. His pace was fine and al- though he enters the summer break full of uncertainty of what happens next, the Turk ended up on the podium. The wondrously varied number of riders to have stood on the podiums in World Supersport grew by one again this weekend – in the form of CIA Insurance Honda's Irish rider Jack Kennedy. His luck has been bad this Chaz Davies (7) leads the Aprilia pair of Marco Melandri (33) and Sylvain Guintoli (50) on their march through the field in race two. The Aprilia pair would both exit together when Guintoli crashed in the tricky conditions and took his teammate with him.