Supersport Race

Kevin Curtain shot straight to the front of proceedings in the World Supersport season opener and immediately started to pull away from Ten Kate men Kenan Sofuoglu and Sebastien Charpentier. By lap two that trio had pulled out over a second on Broc Parkes.

The Ten Kate then started to eat into Curtain's lead on lap three with the Australian backing the R6 in to some turns very sideways indeed. This trio continued to sprint away from the field and run their own race up front. 

Lap seven saw Sofuoglu hit the front while Broc Parkes parked his Yamaha in the pits with some of mechanical drama. Not the way he would have liked to start the season. Two laps later Charpentier made his move on Curtain to steal second place but the wily Australian got him back a couple of corners later. Meanwhile Sofuoglu was unruffled up front, unruffled by his pursuers, but untidy all the same.

Charpentier finally managed to dispense Curtain on lap ten and the Frenchman quickly closed down his young Turkish team-mate. The new 2007 model CBR600RR devastatingly quick out of the box.

Katsuaki Fujiwara had worked his way up to fourth place and really upped his pace in the latter half of the race and started to claw back some ground on the leading trio. The Ten Kate men engaged in a ding dong battle over the lead while Curtain watched on from a safe couple of seconds behind the Honda men. Fujiwara was four seconds adrift in fourth place but running a hot pace and still in with a chance of a crack at the podium.

Charpentier hit the lead with a couple of laps to run and just when it looked as though he might pull away from the young Turk he lost the front and skidded off into the kitty litter. He picked his machine and himself up and attempted to get underway again but the Honda would not play the game and he was left to watch the closing stages of the race from the sidelines.

Kenan Sofuoglu went on to take first blood in the 2007 World Supersport Championship with a strong win 3.4 seconds ahead of Curtain. A late charging Fujiwara was a further 2.8 seconds adrift while Fabien Foret won the battle of the Kawasakis for fourth place over Pere Riba.

All in all a bit of an anti climax after that immensely thrilling Superbike race earlier in the day.