Soomer, „Today was a much better day“

10.04.2022

If you happen to read this piece, the second race of Round 1 has also been held in the World SSP class and, contrary to predictions, the first balances of power are being established. So Yamaha and Kawasaki now seem to be ahead of the others in terms of speed, as they are also the only bikes with no power limit. In the case of larger displacements of the other engines, the torque reaching the rear wheel is monitored and, if it exceeds the permitted values, the power of engines is limited by electronics. Thus, the gas of Hannes Soomer's Triumph is only 89% open on the straights, which influences the dynamics.

The above may help to understand why today's race start seemed like a repetition of yesterday in the beginning, when the competitors on the Japanese brands immediately started to pull away from the rest. The fastest laps were achieved by Yamaha riders, but unlike Saturday, Dominique Aegerter managed to overtake Lorenzo Baldassarri and fend off the Italian's attacks (both Yamaha VZF R6). Compared to Race 1, Can Oncu (Kawasaki ZX-6R), who was on P3 again, retired due to mechanical failure, which is why Nicolo Bulega (Ducati Panigale V2) entered the podium on Sunday.

The Dynavolt Triumph riders Stefano Manzi and Hannes Soomer finished in P8 and P10, respectively. Soomer, who started from P12, admitted after the finish that today was a much better day. "The race was exciting from the start and full of different battles. I even got off too well 😊 from the start, because in the first corner the braking inside the group took a long time and I even fell back a few places. But then I started to rise again and even though it was touch and go for P10 in the last lap, I managed to take what I had fought for."

But what was different in Race 2? "We made some changes to the settings this morning that seemed to work because we lost almost ten seconds less to the winner today. The choice of tires was better and we were also able to keep the rear tire from wearing too much. In the future, it is necessary to find out what the teammate does differently, because in fast corners he is noticeably faster than me, which I can no longer compensate with breaking/accelerating. I believe we have moved in the right direction and the only disturbing thing right now is that Stefano is currently better able to make the weaknesses of our bike work for himself.”

Round 2 of the Supersport World Championships takes place in two weeks in Assen, Netherlands (22.-24.04.2022).