With the sun out and temperatures rising high the Drive Park race track in Thessaloniki, Greece was ready for the race day of the fourth round of the S1 Supermoto European Championship. The Greek organisation prepared the track at its best and with the spectators already early on the grandstands, Thessaloniki was ready for some racing action. At his return after the injury sustained in Poland, TM Factory Racing rider Thomas Chareyre was back at the top and took the victory in the S1 Class. In the S1 Lites class the victory went to Phoenix Racing rider Nicolas Cousin.
Race1
The first race in Thessaloniki started with 22 riders on the grid. At the start it was Phoenix Racing rider Markus Class to take the holeshot into the first corner of the Drive Park race track. In second TM Factory Racing rider Thomas Chareyre followed by Degasoline rider Pavel Kejmar and by the teammate of Chareyre Diego Monticelli. Fifth position in the first few corners was for SWM Factory rider Mauno Hermunen who was making his debut in Greece after his injury sustained in Albaida. Hermunen was followed by Phoenix Racing rider Nicolas Cousin and KTM MTR rider Laurent Fath.
Leader in the S1 Lites championship, Phoenix Racing rider Elia Sammartin started the race from fourteenth position. In front of the race Markus Class was still leading ahead of Thomas Chareyre but the Frenchman was less than tenths of a seconds away from Class. Both riders created a gap towards the rest of the competitors. Pavel Kejmar was still in third position with right behind him Diego Monticelli and Mauno Hermunen.
Class was behind Chareyre all race long but the Frenchman didn’t make any mistakes at his return to the racetrack and gave Class no chance to overtake. At the end of the race, Chareyre was still able to put down some very fast laps, creating a small gap towards Markus Class. The TM Factory Racing rider took the victory with an advantage of 1:454 seconds on Markus Class who finished second. Pavel Kejmar finished in third position 11:126 seconds behind Chareyre. After fighting all race with Mauno Hermunen, Diego Monticelli managed the take fourth place in race one before the Finnish rider who completed the top five in Thessaloniki. Sixth position for KTM MTR rider Laurent Fath.
Race2
At the start of the second race in Thessaloniki it was TM Factory Racing rider Thomas Chareyre to enter the first corner in first place. Chareyre was followed by Pavel Kejmar and Markus Class. Class didn’t want to waste any time and overtook Kejmar after a few corners. In fourth position out of the first corner it was Mauno Hermunen in front of Diego Monticelli and KTM MTR rider Laurent Fath who had a good start.
In the battle for the lead Markus Class was pushing harder and harder but in lap seven, the fast German rider pushed too hard and crashed. Markus Class restarted his bike quickly but with all rider still close, Class felt back to seventh place in the race. Because of the crash of Class, the tension in the race was gone as Thomas Chareyre got a lead of more than six seconds on the rest of the field. Behind Chareyre, Pavel Kejmar was in second position almost five seconds in front of Mauno Hermunen. Hermunen had a small gap towards Diego Monticelli, but the Finnish rider couldn’t rest as the Italian teammate of Chareyre kept pushing hard. After sixteen laps in the Greek heat, Thomas Chareyre finished in first position, taking the overall victory as well. Second place for Pavel Kejmar followed by Mauno Hermunen who completed the top three of race two. Fourth place was for Diego Monticelli followed by Laurent Fath in fifth.
In the S3 class victory of the Bulgarian Michael Ivanov in front of Turkish Talha Zengin and of Bulgarian Alex Dimitrov.
In the Junior class 65 victory of the Turkish Bulut Kocaman who preceded Zhivko Ivanov and Efe Yildirim, both from Bulgaria.
In the Junior class 85 the winner was Czech Jan Ulman ahead of two Bulgarian riders: Viktor Neychev and Kristian Ivanov.
The next round of the 2018 Supermoto European Championship will be held in Sestriere, Italy in the weekend of 8 and 9 September.
Full results on FIM Europe website: http://www.fim-europe.eu/events/595
