Pacedayz wildcard rider Kyle Ryde bagged his first World Supersport podium at Donington Park this afternoon. The Motorpoint British Supersport title challenger fought hard to hold on to third and out-witted MV Agusta’s Lorenzo Zanetti for the final step on the rostrum.
The eventual race win went to multiple Supersport champ, Kenan Sofuoglu who held off MV Agusta’s Jules Cluzel to take a convincing victory, and had nearly a two second advantage over the Frenchman.
At first it was a poor start by Ryde but not for Cluzel as he got the hole-shot at Redgate followed by Sofuoglu. But the young Brit fought back after slipping to fifth to climb to third on the second lap.
“I did a good race but lost the pace halfway through, I passed Zanetti with a few laps to go and I did a good job. Donington is one of my favourite tracks, and I do like it,” said Ryde, speaking to bikesportnews.com fresh off the podium.
“Hopefully I can do another wild card ride but we will see. After this weekend there should be no excuses after this that I shouldn’t be on the top step of the podium [at the next Motorpoint British Supersport round] at Snetterton.”
Two rotations later the top three pushed away from Zanetti, Jacobsen, Stapleford and Hornsey, but Ryde was not going to let Frenchman Cluzel take all the glory, and the seventeen year old went up to second going into Goddards, as Cluzel ran wide leaving the door opening for Sofuoglu to take the lead. At the halfway point Cluzel took advantage of a mistake from Ryde and regained second from the teenager.
But Zanetti was aiming for a podium spot and pulled even closer to Ryde and went up to third, with five laps to go onboard his Reparto Corse backed machine. With the two riders fighting for third it paved the way for Sofuoglu and Cluzel to gain an advantage and were five seconds further down the field on lap seventeen.
Ryde found something special on the penultimate lap to go back into third at the Foggy Esses, and managed to hold on for the final rotation and his first World Supersport podium. Zanetti and former MCE British Superbike rider PJ Jacobsen completed the top five.
Profile Racing’s Luke Stapleford and Sam Hornsey were locked together for sixth place, but in the end Stapleford clinched that spot, ahead of his garage buddy and fellow countryman, CIA Insurance’s Gino Rea.
Motorpoint British Supersport regular Andy Reid rounded up the top ten on his Core Motorsport machine, with Brit Kieran Clarke snatching his first point of the season, after coming across the finishing line in fifteenth.
Pata Honda’s Kyle Smith did not have a good race and ended the afternoon firmly in the gravel after a crash at Coppice, bringing a premature end to the British rider’s race weekend.
