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Historic First Kawasaki Double Win In WorldSSP
Kawasaki WorldSSP Team rider Jeremy Alcoba pulled off another race win at the team’s home round, taking his second victory in as many days at the 2.34-mile-long circuit in Italy. Dominique Aegerter was 12th in Race 2.
Cremona proved to be the first venue at which any Kawasaki rider has won both WorldSSP races in a single weekend, since WorldSSP started featuring two races per round in 2020.
Sitting in third place for most of the 20-lap second race, Alcoba was patient and restrained until near the end, when he took the race lead on Lap 18. Alcoba made sure that he and his Ninja ZX-6R 636 would take the victory, which he did by 0.493 seconds over championship leader Albert Arenas.
For Aegerter, starting Race 2 from 15th place on the grid, 12th would be his final race result. In all, he gathered 11 championship points at Cremona, equalling his best weekend performance of the season to date.
In the championship standings, after 10 of 12 rounds, a maximum possible weekend points score for Alcoba has propelled him up to sixth place overall, with 188 points in all. Aegerter is 18th, with 49 points.
After Cremona, the season will be completed by back-to-back race weekends, starting at Estoril in Portugal from October 9-11 and coming to a conclusion at Jerez in Spain, from October 16-18.
“I am really happy. I cannot say that I did not expect this because on Friday I felt really good. The rider always takes things more personally from the second race than the first when he goes home, so that made me a bit more nervous today, but I was trying to control myself and stay focused. I knew that other riders could improve from yesterday and that this race would be longer. I was struggling a bit after seven laps yesterday, so today I decided to be smarter and smoother, and I felt like I was fast. When I saw that [Albert] Arenas and [Tom] Booth-Amos were in first and second place, I decided to pass [Filippo] Farioli and [Valentin] Debise, and I was there with the leading riders. Not too close because I knew that the front tire pressure could go up when inside the slipstream. I was riding more with the front than the rear right then. I almost lost the front in some corners, and I was close to crashing, but I stayed focused. I studied the riders in front, and I knew where I was faster, so when I passed Arenas I tried to defend in the sectors where he was faster. Another victory for the team and me in Cremona.”
- Jeremy Alcoba
“We finished in 12th place, but for sure I wanted more. We started in 15th place on the grid, so we had a very hard early battle. I had a good start, but in the first laps I did not have enough power to attack. In the middle of the race, I was very competitive, and I could overtake a few riders. We struggled a little bit in the last few laps, because I pushed on every lap I could. It was positive this weekend, and we took a step forward, just not where we want to be. We have two more rounds in Estoril and Jerez, and for sure we will do our best. Again, big congratulations to my teammate Jeremy Alcoba, who won the first and second race. It is cool to see that the bike works and that when everything goes together, we can be fast.”
- Dominique Aegerter
