The swooping MotorLand Aragon circuit played host for the opening European Superstock 1000 championship round, and Michael Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing –Junior Team) dominated the 13 lap race under sunny Spanish skies.
Starting from pole position, the Italian rider took a strong lead from the first lap. By the end of the first lap he had a lead of over 0.3s over Maximilian Schieb (Nuova M2 Racing), who later crashed at turn four on lap six. This left the door wide open for Florian Marino (PATA Yamaha Official STK1000 Team), who took control of second position and crossed the finish line 3.587s behind the race winner.
Roberto Tamburini (PATA Yamaha Official STK1000 Team) made up for a tough day yesterday and completed the podium around MotorLand, and was again a lonely 6.732s back from the race winner. 2016’s regular podium finisher Toprak Razgatlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) fought for a podium finish in the closing laps, but was unable to make it to the line and finished in fourth position overall.
Marco Faccani (Althea BMW Racing Team) completed the top five ahead of Frenchman Jeremy Guarnoni (Pedercini Racing Kawasaki), in sixth. Illia Mykhalchyk (TripleM Racing) made a strong jump throughout the race, and was able to finish in the top eight, ahead of Mike Jones (Aruba.it Racing – Junior Team) in ninth, and Marvin Fritz (Bayer-Bikerbox Yamaichi) rounded out the top ten.
The dominance shown in the STK1000 race was a stunning display of talent, and rivals will be keen to fight back in the second round of the season at TT Assen in three weeks time.
