By Bright blue skies, more than a touch of sun, a slight breeze, the weather looked to be on the side of competitors, as the opening IRRC Supersport race dawned at Horice.
As widely anticipated, the fight for race spoils was between leading 2023 IRRC Supersport title pursuers, Jorn Hamberg and Marek Cerveny.
WRP Wepol Racing Parts backed Cerveny took the early initiative, opening up a tiny 0.3 advantage over Hamberg once lap one finalised.
Lap two would see the existing Supersport lap record bested by 765 Triumph runner Cerveny, lapping sub 2:17 seconds.
This helped him move almost 0.7 ahead of Performance Racing Achterhoek’s Hamberg.
By the conclusion of lap three though, Hamberg had trimmed Cerveny’s race-lead to only 0.345 of a second.
From here, it was nip and tuck between the front running duo.
On lap seven it seemed that Hamberg, newly into the race lead, had taken control of race proceedings only for Cerveny to re-take P1 after both lapped slower riders.
Despite the determination, brute pace of Dutch ace Hamberg, who on lap nine, dipped inside the record Supersport lap time, Cerveny would steadfastly hold onto P1, finishing only 0.066 ahead at the race’s optimisation.
Race success gives Cerveny now a twenty-point IRRC Supersport Championship lead, over new Horice Supersport lap record holder Hamberg.
Behind the rampant duo of Cerveny and Hamberg, Festa Laserscanning Europe by PSB’s Petr Najman completed the podium finishers.
100th Anniversary Manx GP bound Michal ‘Indi’ Dokoupil attained a solid fourth place finish.
Wolfgang Schuster long time fourth place carrier, placed fifth with placings sixth, seventh, eighth wrapped up respectively by Karel Brandtner, Ilja Caljouw and Romain Cleaz Savoyen.
Kamil Holan, Mauro Poncini claimed the final top 10 leader board positions whilst UK representatives Forest Dunn, Rhys Hardisty, took 19th, 21st place finishes.
IRRC Horice – Supersport Race 1 Result:
1st – Marek Cerveny
2nd – Jorn Hamberg
3rd – Petr Najman
4th – Michal Dokoupil
5th – Wolfgang Schuster
6th – Karel Brandtner
7th – Ilja Caljouw
8th – Romain Cleas Savoyen
9th – Kamil Holan
10th – Mauro Poncini
11th – Rico Vetter
12th – Sebastian Frotscher
13th – Anssi Koski
14th – Tomas Toth
15th – Matous Ondrusz
16th – Tiziano Rosati
17th – Frantisek Loueka
18th – Thomas Wendel
19th – Forest Dunn
20th – Robert Rohde
21st – Rhys Hardisty
22nd – Jerome Bagard
23rd – Tobias Grunzinger
24th – Thomas Stripp
25th – Peter Lionel
26th – Jakub Sprojcar
27th – Gregory Botty
28th – Yannik Jacops
Photo credit: Thijs Van Der Horst
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
