After the close racing that occurred in Saturday’s Supersport race one, the expectation was that there would be a repeat performance in Sunday’s race two. However, an incident going into the chicane on the opening lap took out Saturday’s winner Richie Escalante. The HONOS Kawasaki rider and current championship leader was unhurt but unable to rejoin the race. That left the battle for the lead to the other two frontrunners, Sean Dylan Kelly and Brandon Paasch. Then, inexplicably, Paasch appeared to fall off his Celtic HSBK Racing Yamaha, which ended his day.
With both of his fiercest rivals out of the race, that left Kelly with a gaping lead aboard his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki. At the checkers, he won by more than 18 seconds over his teammate Lucas Silva, who celebrated his first-ever podium finish. Third place went to a somewhat somber Aguilar Racing Yamaha rider Jason Aguilar, who appreciated the podium finish but wished that attrition hadn’t played a factor in his result.
“Definitely a crazy race,” Kelly said. “I’m glad I was first into the first corner to avoid everything that happened behind me. I honestly had no idea what was going on. I did hear something in the first corner. It didn’t sound too good, but of course at the end of the day we all hear things while we’re riding. So, I wasn’t too sure what was going on. Today, I really focused on myself. I feel like, yesterday, I was a bit too worried about the fight with everyone, and it obviously didn’t go my way. I mean, okay, P2. Good yesterday, but we’re here to win. Today I just went out with a different mentality and went out there to win, and it showed in the lap times. I just focused on myself. I did very consistent 44’s in the first five laps. I knew I had someone behind me. I wasn’t sure if it was Branden (Paasch) or Richie (Escalante), or even both of them. I really didn’t know. I just kept my head down and did my own thing. Five laps or six laps in, from one moment to the other I didn’t hear a bike. Then on my board I saw plus-12. That’s not very usual. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I kept on doing my laps and then looked back just to make sure if that was right, I didn’t see anyone very close. It felt eternal. But I’m very happy to get these 25 points. Of course, unfortunate that our main rivals went down. It’s racing. At the end of the day, we don’t want anyone going down. I would have liked to do a last-lap battle like my first victory in Atlanta. At the end of the day, my objective is to win the championship, so this is really good for us to get 25 (points) on our main rival. Just super grateful to be here in the first spot. Thank you to my whole M4 ECSTAR Suzuki team.”
Source: MotoGP.com – Read Full Article Here