PJ Jacobsen finished today’s sixth-round FIM Supersport World Championship race in fourth place at the Sepang International Circuit after running out of laps following an outstanding comeback in the latter stages of the 14-lap wet encounter. Despite missing out on a podium finish by less than three tenths of a second, the Honda WorldSSP Team’s rider moves up one place in the championship standings and now sits fifth.
After a by-the-book initial starting procedure, with a wet race declared and drops of rain falling in sector two, the rain intensified and all riders chose to change the rear tyre according to the new weather conditions. The overall length of the race was reduced by one lap (from 14 to 13) and the riders went for a second warm-up lap, before red flags were deployed when the rain then came down heavily.
The race finally got underway at 17:15, almost three hours later, as it was scheduled after the World Superbike race 2. Jacobsen lost a couple of places on the opening lap and struggled with a lack of visibility, especially in the early part of the encounter. After getting the better of Kenan Sofuoglu for fourth place, in the final three laps the 22-year-old American put together an outstanding recovery as he bridged the gap to the front-runners by lapping one second faster than his rivals ahead. On the final lap, Jacobsen was simply just not close enough to get in the mix for podium placings.
Patrick Jacobsen 2
4th
The circuit conditions were a lot different to Friday’s: it was greasy and dirty and I struggled a lot with visibility. I don’t think Kenan Sofuoglu ahead of me was able to see well either, because he was constantly sticking his head out of the bubble of his bike. Once I got by and was able to at least see again on some parts of the track, I tried to charge as hard as I could and everything felt good. Unfortunately it was just a little bit too late. It was quite disappointing because I tried really, really hard and in the last three laps I tried to catch up at least with Gino Rea and get on the podium, but I just couldn’t get the job done. Nevertheless, we took a good bunch of points and that’s always a positive.
Pieter Breddels
Technical Manager
PJ was careful at the start of the race – maybe because he had the Assen race still in his mind – and that meant that he got caught up in the middle of the pack and had a bit of a difficult time in trying to get past Kenan. The run he had in the last three laps was amazing: too bad there wasn’t another lap available, because that would have allowed him to make a last push for the podium. We were surely hoping for more, but fourth is definitely not a bad result. The Honda CBR600RR performed really well in the wet and that’s a good sign for Donington, a circuit known for its changeable weather.
