WorldSSP: Jules Cluzel scores first podium for India's NRT at Aragon

After two flyaways completed for the Indian-backed NRT outfit, the team had its first taste on the European soil at Aragon, Spain this weekend for Round 3 in the 20 World Supersport Championship with experienced Jules Cluzel once again leading the way.

The Frenchman abode the #16 Yamaha YZF-R6 showed huge promise in Thailand until the fall and was fastest straight out of the box in FP1 on Friday with a time of 1m59.586s, which he followed it up finishing fifth and eighth respectively in the remaining two sessions.

His teammate Thomas Gradinger didn’t have the best of starts as he was 28th and last in the opening session with only five laps done. The Austrian abode the #36 Yamaha was 16th in FP2 and improved to 14th in FP3, but didn’t get a direct entry to Superpole 2.

After a solid start to the weekend, Cluzel found it slightly tough going as the Frenchman could only get a second row start, qualifying sixth with a time of 1m54.421s in a tight battle, which saw the Top 8 within a second of pole-sitter Kallio Racing’s Sandro Cortese.

The German denied GRT Yamaha’s Lucas Mahias a pole by a mere 0.022s, while Mahias’ teammate Federico Caricasulo was a further 0.059s away from him with Cluzel finishing 0.854s from Cortese in Superpole 2.

Meanwhile, Gradinger had a good showing in Superpole 1 after the Austrian qualified fourth in the session and 14th overall with a time of 1m55.234s in which he missed an entry to Superpole 2 by just the 0.118s margin.

Race

It was a storming start on Sunday for Cluzel as he moved from sixth to first in the opening lap. The Frenchman continued his charge until Lap 6 when he was overtaken by pole-sitter Cortese, who fought his way back after dropping to third at the start.

Not only Cluzel lost out to Cortese but Caricasulo also find a way past the NRT rider, but he hung on to the back of the two riders while keeping Mahias at bay, who was piling up the pressure from behind to claim a Top 3 result and extend his championship lead.

However, Cluzel managed to hold him back while himself trying to break through Caricasulo and Cortese. It wasn’t to be though as the German took the win from the Italian by 1m426s, while Cluzel was a further 0.213s behind in third after 16 laps.

Nevertheless, Cluzel took the Indian outfit’s maiden podium finish in only their third race as a team – much to the delight after a reported troubled start to the weekend and sort of erasing the bad memories from Thailand where he crashed out while battling for the win.

At the same time, it was a mixed run for Gradinger. The Austrian had a fall to 19th in the opening lap but recovered to 15th by Lap 4 until another trouble to drop back to 27th. It was then trying to hang on for Gradinger as he finished 23rd.

With three races in the books, Cluzel is sixth with 25 points and Gradinger 12th with 11 to his name as Mahias leads with 58 in the riders’ standings. The teams’ standings have NRT in fourth with 36 points as GRT Yamaha leads with 107.

The teams and riders have little time to recover as they will return to the track for Round 4 at TT Assen in Netherlands during the April 20-22 weekend.

[Note: This story was first written by me on: sportsflashes.com/en/news/worldssp-cluzel-scores-maiden-podium-for-nrt-at-aragon/194051.html]

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