TOP EIGHTS FOR TRIUMPH-POWERED TEAMS IN WORLD SUPERSPORT OPENING ROUND
The opening round of the World Supersport Championship at Phillip Island, Australia, yielded three top-eight finishes for the Triumph Street Triple RS 765.
In the opening race, WRP-RT Motorsport by SKM-Triumph’s Jorge Navarro and John McPhee finished 7th and 8th, separated by just 0.006s as they crossed the line, and in the shortened race two McPhee finished 8th.
Indeed McPhee was the man on the move in race, using his Triumph triple to power from 21st on the grid to 8th, making up more positions than anyone else.
Meanwhile PTR Triumph’s Tom Booth-Amos suffered a big crash in the opening race, and was taken to the medical centre for a post-race check-up on his wrist. He bravely returned for the second race, in which he started eighth courtesy of setting the eighth-fastest lap in race 1, hanging on to finish 13th. Ondrej Vostatek meanwhile took his first championship points of the season with 14th in race 1. The young Czech rider improved towards the end of the race and actually posted his fastest lap of the weekend (1’33.443) on lap eight.
In the first race a mandatory pitstop was introduced owing to track conditions and tyre wear, although it was annulled for the second race. This was because a delay due to spilled oil from an earlier race which forced the reduction of race distance to just a nine-lap sprint.
Tom Booth-Amos: “It’s been one of those weekends unfortunately. I couldn’t really feel my arm after a couple of laps due to yesterday’s crash so I couldn’t ride to the full potential of the bike or myself. I just thought, it’s a long season, let’s bring it home and get some points towards the championship because yesterday I proved my point and we know we are fast so we will bounce back in Barcelona. Thanks to the team for working hard, they stayed up all night to build a new bike and it’s very well appreciated.”
Ondrej Vostatek: “It was really crazy from the start because of the oil on the track and we waited in the pits for a long time. I don’t know, in front of me were riders that last season I was able to beat every time and now I’m not able. So, we will try to find where the problem is, fix it and challenge for the top ten because this is where we belong.”
PTR Triumph Team Manager Simon Buckmaster: "It’s fair to say it’s not the weekend we wanted but after Tom’s crash yesterday he’s got a lot of cuts on his arm and it’s hurting him a lot. We should be proud that as a team he managed to salvage some points. We can see his potential because of his pace before the crash, we just have to put it down to experience, these things happen in racing. Fair play to Tom for getting some points in the situation where he was not fully fit and hurting from his big crash. Obviously we need to talk to Ondrej to understand what the issues were because at the end of the race he was putting his fastest laps in. If he had those lap times from the very start he could probably have been in a better position so we need to understand why the pace wasn’t there at the start of the race.”
