Wepol Racing’s Matthieu Lagrive made it this afternoon three wins from three starts, in this years IRRC Supersport series, after emerging on top in an absolutely thrilling opening Supersport encounter at Imatranajo.
Lagrive, who showed last year his ability to be victorious in closely contested Supersport races, hit the sweet spot at the right time to secure race honours by just over 0.9 of a second, in front of Ram Racing Yamaha’s Felix Nassi.
Photo by Damon Teerink
Claiming the final place on the rostrum was multi IRRC Supersport champ, race leader on lap eight, Laurent Hoffmann.
Finishing in fourth place, just 0.046 of a second behind Hoffmann was Anssi Koski, whilst overall only 1.92 seconds covered the top four finishers.
Rising Italian star Luca Gottardi enjoyed a productive ten lap stint, on route to finishing an excellent fifth.
LSE Racing’s Christian Schmitz was sixth, Erwan Bannwart claimed seventh, Pierre Yves Bian got the better of Optimark Road Racing team mate Xavier Denis for eighth, as Performance Racing Achterhoek’s Ilja Caljouw concluded the first ten finishers.
Notable non finishers included the Paukka Racing duo of Pauli Pekkanen and Sami Penna, whilst overall 16 racers completed the ten lap race.
IRRC Imatranajo: Supersport Race 1 result, is as follows:
1 Matthieu Lagrive
2 Felix Nassi
3 Laurent Hoffmann
4 Anssi Koski
5 Luca Gottardi
6 Christian Schmitz
7 Erwan Bannwart
8 Pierre Yves Bian
9 Xavier Denis
10 Ilja Caljouw
11 Mikko Uski
12 Danila Krasniuk
13 Miika Viiperi
14 Henrik Voit
15 Tiia Seima
16 Leonard Mesojedec
Words by Stevie Rial