DOHA: Australian rider Anthony West won both races of the Qatar SuperBike Championship that took place under the floodlights of Losail International Circuit in Doha.
In the first race of the day, there was a red flag after three laps and the race was stopped and restarted again with nine laps.
West, the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) Racing Team Moto2 rider, who started in second position on the grid, pushed from the beginning of the race and gave no chance to any riders to ride close to him, crossing the checkered flag with a gap of 9.362 from Alex Cudlin.
West was very happy at the end of the race taking into account all the big stress from yesterday with the bike so challenging to ride and so many problems with the gears.
West said: “I am quite happy with the results with so many things that went wrong yesterday plus Nina (Prinz) and Alex (Cudlin) were so fast, that I was a bit worried but at the end, my chief mechanic Marco, did a really good job to get the bike handling well. It took me some days to get used to ride it but now I feel that I can ride this bike properly.”
Cudlin rode easily in second place for almost the whole race but in the last lap, Prinz increased her lap timing and managed to get very close to Cudlin. But there was no time to pass him, so Cudlin finished second place and Prinz claimed third spot.
For Cudlin this result proved to be very good for the championship as he was co-leading the championship with Nasser Al Malki who finished in fifth position.
Starting from first position in the race, Prinz, ended the race in the third position but was very satisfied with her result.
In the first part of the race, she had a nice battle with Al Malki for the third place and in the last lap she managed to ride her best lap time at Losail International Circuit.
In the Losail Asian Road Racing Series, the fastest rider was the Serbian female rider Manca Katrasnik.
The final result of the second race of the day was identical to the first race.
Cudlin led the race during the first three laps, but there was no chance for him to fight for the victory once once he was overtaken by West.
West was more comfortable in the second race and had a better feeling even if he made a bad start that made Cudlin to take the lead.
After the second race, West said: “Something happened to the bike in the start, I don’t know as the bike is new for me. I had to fight hard to catch Alex (Cudlin) and I overheated the clutch so once I passed him, I knew I had to go away from him quickly if not it will be difficult to have a fight with him with this problem. Fortunately, I managed to cool it down and I pushed again.”
Prinz claimed the third place spot on the podium.
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