Jules Cluzel (GMT96 Yamaha R6) was the man of the day after his pole position, when he was able to shine with the most laps in the lead in the first race of the afternoon.

Cluzel wins – Aegerter extends World Championship lead with P3

The pole sitter didn’t miss a thing this time and since the first run in Nevers Jules Cluzel had another podium in mind, which is why he tried to take the lead early on. It took until the third lap when the fast Frenchman was in the lead for the first time. But Manuel Gonzalez and Dominique Aegerter did everything to make the GMT96 Yamaha rider’s job too easy. But the multiple WSSP vice world champion was determined to get his first victory since Argentina 2019. The Spaniard and the Swiss only got the honours on the podium, although the world championship leader had to work hard in the last three rounds to keep Raffaele de Rosa (Kawasaki) and Niki Tuuli (MV Agusta) off To hold the body. Only a little behind that, Steven Odendaal saw the chequered flag in sixth place, which means that the South African’s title fight should have slowly taken off.

Steven Odendaal (Bardahl Evan Bros Yamaha R6) with 6th place he again missed an opportunity to leave the world championship leader behind him and with it his deficit on Aegerter widened further, which means he has almost no chance for the title with only five races left.

The winners and losers of the first race on Saturday
In addition to the three men on the podium and the riders directly behind, Patrick Hobelsberger and most of the others from positions 10 to 15 with World Championship points were among the winners. It was not the first time that the German showed that he has what it takes to be among the front-runners in the Supersport 600 World Championship. His compatriot Philipp Öttl, on the other hand, was one of the losers for once, along with Odendaal, Öncü and Caricasulo. After many good races, 9th place was a major setback, and the lost points hurt even more. For the vice world champion of 2019 behind the seventh Krummenacher as the conqueror at the time, Federico Caricasulo in particular fell short of expectations as only fourteenth. Similar to the Swiss, the Italian has mostly been a shadow of himself since his retirement from WorldSBK. In the current interim World Cup, the two are only 5 points separated from Öncü on P8 and 9. As eighth after a short lead in lap 2, he also fell well short of his goals.

Dominique Aegerter (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha R6) is already the new world champion with one leg and is the successor to Andrea Locatelli, who has already extended his contract with the Yamaha works team in WorldSBK. Despite the likely World Cup title, the Swiss will probably not get this chance.

The first race of Portimão in numbers

The interviews after the race
After third place, the “Domi-Fighter” admitted that he preferred to land further up the front. But he sees it as a success to have managed the tires after a difficult race and still land on the podium. Of course, he’ll try his best again on Sunday. It was definitely a good race for the championship, as he put on record. Despite second place, Manuel Gonzalez was also satisfied. Towards the end he noticed that it would hardly be enough for victory, and now he is trying to land on the top of the podium in the second run on Sunday. After his first win in two years, Jules Cluzel was of course overjoyed. He will therefore also try to achieve the optimum again on the second run. It was really a long time, laughed the Frenchman, that he had finally won again.

The podium after the first race on Saturday of the WorldSSP 600 with Manuel Gonzalez (P2) from left, winner Jules Cluzel and third-placed Dominique Aegerter (all Yamaha).

The Autodromo do Algarve

Stand in the WorldSSP 600 world championships

At the moment, it looks like Steven Odendaal has lost his chances in the fight for the title. Instead of making up points on the Swiss with podium places in the absence of Aegerter in Barcelona, the fast South African is now missing 68 on the world championship leader. With only 5 races left, the “Domi-Fighter” would have to experience a very black series in order to miss his first world title of his career. At the moment, at least, everything indicates that he can gild Ten Kate’s return to the middle category after she renounced WorldSBK participation due to a lack of sponsorship money. After finishing ninth, Philipp Öttl lost his third intermediate place in the world championship to Manuel Gonzalez, who was getting stronger and stronger and only narrowly missed victory in the first run.

P, Rider, Points, Bike
1. DOMINIQUE AEGERTER 343 YAMAHA
2. STEVEN ODENDAAL 275 YAMAHA
3. MANUEL GONZALEZ 236 YAMAHA
4. PHILIPP OETTL 224 KAWASAKI
5. JULES CLUZEL 171 YAMAHA
6. LUCA BERNARDI 161 YAMAHA
7. RAFFAELE DE ROSA 135 KAWASAKI
8. RANDY KRUMMENACHER 131 YAMAHA
9. FEDERICO CARICASULO 126 YAMAHA
10. CAN ALEXANDER ONCU 121 KAWASAKI
11. NIKI TUULI 112 MV AGUSTA
12. HANNES SOOMER 69 YAMAHA
13. CHRISTOFFER BERGMAN 47 YAMAHA
14. MARC ALCOBA 40 YAMAHA
15. PETER SEBESTYEN 37 YAMAHA
16. KEVIN MANFREDI 31 YAMAHA
17. MARCEL BRENNER 26 YAMAHA
18. GALANG HENDRA PRATAMA 24 YAMAHA
19. VERTTI TAKALA 23 YAMAHA
20. SIMON JESPERSEN 22 YAMAHA
21. ANDY VERDOIA 14 YAMAHA
22. GLENN VAN STRAALEN 13 YAMAHA
23. LOIC ARBEL 10 YAMAHA
24. PATRICK HOBELSBERGER 10 YAMAHA
25. STEPHANE FROSSARD 10 YAMAHA
26. VALENTIN DEBISE 9 YAMAHA
27. SHERIDAN MORAIS 9 YAMAHA
28. DAVID SANCHIS MARTINEZ 8 YAMAHA
29. STEFANO MANZI 7 YAMAHA
30. MATTEO PATACCA 7 YAMAHA
31. MARIA HERRERA 7 YAMAHA
32. FEDERICO FULIGNI 7 YAMAHA
33. YARI MONTELLA 6 YAMAHA
34. FILIPPO FULIGNI 6 YAMAHA
35. MICHEL FABRIZIO 6 KAWASAKI
36. MAX ENDERLEIN 5 YAMAHA
37. ROBERTO MERCANDELLI 5 YAMAHA
38. HIKARI OKUBO 4 KAWASAKI
39. MASSIMO ROCCOLI 4 YAMAHA
40. LEONARDO TACCINI 4 KAWASAKI
41. LUCA GRUNWALD 3 SUZUKI
42. ONDREJ VOSTATEK 3 YAMAHA
43. UNAI ORRADRE 2 YAMAHA
44. DANIEL VALLE 2 YAMAHA
45. LUDOVIC CAUCHI 1 YAMAHA
46. OSCAR GUTIERREZ IGLESIAS 1 YAMAHA
47. LUCA OTTAVIANI 1 KAWASAKI
48. DAVIDE PIZZOLI 1 YAMAHA

After a lot of bad luck and several crashes through no fault of his own, the sun was finally shining again for Jules Cluzel and the Frenchman was able to leave all opponents behind.

WorldSBK Portimao schedule

>WSBK Portimão Preview see separate report on this page.

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