In the Supersport World Championship the big fight will once more feature the only two riders who can win the championship now, leader Kenan Sofuoglu (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) and Eugene Laverty (Parkalgar Honda).
Laverty is now 12 points behind Sofuoglu, meaning that even if he wins both remaining races, and Kenan finishes second each time, Sofuoglu will win the championship by two points. Sofuoglu was the fastest WSS rider in the summer tyre tests sessions at Imola, an event that Laverty‰Ûªs team did not attend.
‰ÛÏI have been training hard in very hot weather to prepare for this race in Imola," Sofuoglu said.
"It‰Ûªs been a very good season so far and now we are getting towards the end, so we want to keep it going. Imola is one of my favourite circuits and I was able to get a very fast lap time during our test their in July so I am really looking forward to the weekend. I really want to go for another win in Imola so that there is not so much pressure in the last race at Magny-Cours. However, we all know that it will be very tough and that we need a lot of luck in Imola to make it happen the way we want," the Turkish rider concluded.
Eugene Laverty knows he has to win to have any chance of taking the tittle from Sofuoglu
‰ÛÏThis will be a very important weekend between me and Kenan. He will be going in with the same attitude as me because I am closing in on him. He knows he needs to win, and I definitely need to win because I have absolutely nothing to lose after what happened in Germany," Laverty said.
"When Gino Rea got disqualified, I really could have done without that. I think this weekend will decide things, so I don‰Ûªt think Kenan is going to sit there and settle. There will be other factors at work this weekend, Gino and Broc Parkes should be strong again and Chaz Davies, he was good at Imola last year in his debut WSS race," Laverty concluded.
Intermoto Czech Honda's Gino Rea made a real breakthrough in the WSS class at the previous round in Germany, taking a close second place just behind Laverty until he was excluded from the results for a technical infringement. He now knows, however, he can run at a true competitive pace, and is out to repeat that level of performance at Imola.
‰ÛÏIt was disappointing to be excluded at the last race but I think we will be back up there at Imola. We had a good race in the previous round in Germany because we concentrated on making the rear tyre last for the whole race. I was glad that I could stay so close to the leader for the full race distance and want to repeat that this weekend," Rea said.
The final round of the Supersport Championship take place at Magny-Cours the weekend after Imola, with raceday on Sunday 3 October.
Main Photo: Kenan Sofuoglu
Credit: Honda Racing
Round 12 - Standings
1 Kenan Sofuoglu 223
2 Eugene Laverty 211
3 Joan Lascorz 168
4 Chaz Davies 137
5 David Salom 90
6 Robbin Harms 87
7 Gino Rea 83
8 Michele Pirro 66
9 Matthieu Lagrive 65
10 Fabien Foret 65
