Mahi Racing clinches debut Supersport win at Philip Island

  • Feb 25, 2013
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Mahi Racing Team India, India's first and only team to participate in World Supersport Championship started its campaign with a bang as Kenan Sofuoglu won the opening race of the season at Philip Island in Australia

Riders arriving at the first corner of the race

When Mahi Racing (a team partly owned by Indian Cricket team skipper Mahendra Sing Dhoni) announced that they have signed former world champions Kenan Sofuoglu and Fabien Foret for the 2013 season and said they would be looking forward to win a few races this season, even they wouldn’t have imagined that a win could have come so soon. But that is the manner in which the world of racing functions, totally unpredictable and intriguing.

Kenan Sofuoglu leading Sam Lowes

Kenan Sofuoglu, the defending champion started his race on second position for his new team behind Yaknich Motorsport Yamaha rider Sam Lowes. Both the riders made a brilliant start with Lowes leading Sofuoglu by a small margin, the duo continued their tussle for the lead till the opening few laps. Even though the Yamaha rider was able to build up a slight lead an error on lap 12 gave the three-time champion a window of opportunity which he made it count as he overtook Lowes.

Kenan Sofuoglu in action at Philip Island

Once in lead Sofuoglu put the hammer down on his Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R as he registered some blistering laps one after another to increase his lead in a reduced 15-lap race. In his pursuit to widen the gap, the Turkish rider set the new lap record of 1m 33.283seconds. Lowes tried his best to catch Sofuoglu in the dying stages of the race but the Mahi Racing rider had a built-up a comfortable lead over him to secure the chequered flag 1.899seconds ahead of him. With this win, the three-time world champion registered his 22nd victory in World Supersport Race and gave his team their first win in the series. 

Fabien Foret the second Mahi Racing rider had a relatively disappointing outing as he finished the race in fourth place after starting in third position. Rookie Michael van der Mark aboard the Pata Honda World Supersport Team made an excellent debut as he finished on the final step of the podium after starting the race in fourth place. 

Kenan Sofuoglu posing with other podium finishers
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van der Mark made a fine start and was able to overtake Foret in the opening stages of the race and was at one moment close on heels of the leading pair. But in the final stages of the race, the reigning European Superstock 600 champion eased down to finish the race 6.771seconds behind the winner and was visibly pleased by his performance. With this win, Mahi Racing Team have declared themselves as one of the major contenders for this season and it will be interesting to see how they fare in the 15 round championships after this impressive start.

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