Sofuoglu made a great start to the first attempted running of the WorldSSP race at Donington, and had to do it all again in a 13-lap restart. His early pace took him clear of his rivals and he won by a clear 2.450 seconds to earn full points in every race he has finished in 2017.
Kyle Ryde was held back by his qualifying position of 14th but moved into 11th place at the end, gaining valuable championship points. He is still seventh in the championship, now with 41 points.
Today’s race gave Kenan his 41st career victory and his third race win at Donington in succession for Kawasaki.
Kenan’s new total of 75 championship points sees him move into second place in the standings, 30 points behind Lucas Mahias.
After the completion of the Donington WorldSSP weekend the championship now heads back to Italy, for the seventh round of the 12 round season, at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. Raceday will be 18th June.
Kenan Sofuoglu, stated: “To be very honest I am still not thinking about the championship but my goal is to keep winning races. I missed the first three rounds of the year. Then I thought I could not be champion but I knew I would be happy to win races. I have zero stress for the races and finally I was fast again today. On Friday and Saturday I could not make the pace I wanted but today it was not difficult. It was nice to know that if I wanted to go faster there was a big potential. I made some changes in my riding style today and the lap time was immediately better.”
Kyle Ryde, stated: “Not our best day but I am happy that I made an improvement from yesterday. I think the main problem this weekend is that I was trying to make my bike feel like the bike I finished on the podium with here in the past. In the end we came to a medium setting today, so the set-up on the bike was not too bad. I need to copy Kenan’s style so I am sure in Misano there are no corners like Donington, and I hope I can be inside the top six again.”
Gino Rea (Team Kawasaki Go Eleven) was one place behind Ryde today, in 12th place, with Kazuki Watanabe (Team Kawasaki Go Eleven) another Kawasaki rider in the points, in 15th place.
Michael Canducci (3570 Puccetti Racing FMI Kawasaki) was 17th, Rob Hartog (Team Hartog Jenik Against Cancer Kawasaki) 19th and Zulfahmi Khairuddin (Orelac Racing VerdNatura Kawasaki) 20th. Nacho Calero (Orelac Racing VerdNatura Kawasaki) placed 22nd and Lachlan Epis (Response RE Racing Kawasaki) 23rd.