DOUBLE VICTORY FOR HASSAN AT MANFEILD SBK



Team Suzuki Press Office – December 15.

Suzuki’s Jaden Hassan raced to a double victory at Sunday’s second round of the Suzuki-sponsored Superbike series at Manfeild in New Zealand.

The 20 year old from Westmere, Auckland – in only his second season of racing – qualified his GSX-R1000 on pole and then dominated both premier class 1000cc Formula One/ Superbike class races. This was a great comeback from his campaign-wrecking crash at the series opener at Hampton Downs the previous weekend, where he had been the only rider to really challenge visiting international and series leader Horst Saiger (Kawasaki).

Hassan will not contest the third and final round of the series – which is set for the public streets of Wanganui on December 26th Day due to family commitments.

Said Hassan: “If I was leading the series after two rounds, I might have considered racing at Wanganui, but, as it stands after my crash last week, there is no chance I can win the series and so I’ll instead have a break from racing on Boxing Day and spend the time with family over Christmas.

“The second race today was one of the hardest of my life, but I was happy to be pushed by Horst. I’m learning so much by racing against him. The weekend could not have been any better for me; I’d call it a perfect weekend.”

Saiger settled for third equal on Sunday, still enough for him to extend his series lead to 10 points over Scott Moir (Suzuki GSX-R1000).

Moir had a weekend to forget; first he was struck down during Saturday’s practice session when a stone punctured his bike’s radiator, then, with the leak repaired, he suffered a high-speed crash during Sunday morning’s qualifying.

Remarkably, with his crew coming to the rescue and his bike patched-up, he was still able to line up for race one and was rewarded with third place. He backed-that-up with a fifth placing in race two, ending the day fifth overall and climbed to second place in the series standings.

Words and photo: Andy McGechan @ www.bikesportnz.com


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