Yamaha Racing ASEAN’s Broc Parkes had to overcome Suzuka Circuit as well as his rivals to win ASB 1000 race one today.
The Australian had crashed at the long, left hand Spoon curve while on a fast qualifying lap, wrecking his R1 and leaving him fourth on the starting grid behind Zaqhwan Zaidi, Ratthapong Wilairot and Apiwat Wongthananon. The team got his bike ready minutes before pit lane opened for the sighting lap.
Broc got away well for the 11 lap race from row two, slotting into second place behind Zaqhwan and just ahead of Apiwat and Azlan Shah, as Ratthapong slipped back from his front row starting position. As Apiwat moved up to challenge for second on lap three, Broc appeared to find a false neutral under braking the Spoon and ran wide to drop back, way behind Apiwat and Azlan.
Zaqhwan, riding at his imperious best, initially withstood the pressure from Azlan and Apiwat, but as Broc Parkes clambered back up into contention, it was the Asia Dream Honda riders turn to make a mistake and dropped back to fourth, handing the lead to Azlan, whose BMW was beginning to slide on the soft compound Dunlops he had selected against the medium-hard consensus.
In what was the move of the race, Broc followed Azlan through the final chicane, got the power down perfectly on the exit and went around the outside of the Malaysian as they came onto the home straight. After briefly regaining the lead, Azlan was passed once again by Broc, who this time put the hammer down with two fast laps to make his lead unassailable. Behind the front four, Suzuka first timer, Bryan Staring battled with Yuki Ito for fifth.
Meanwhile, Zaqhwan made his own recovery to come back through to second, three seconds behind Broc at the end, from Azlan and Apiwat. Bryan kept himself just ahead of Ito to claim fifth, while Ratthapong was almost eight seconds further back in seventh in front of Bastien Mackels who, in eighth position, was the best of the wildcards.
Broc’s win extends his championship points tally to 130, a lead of 17 over Azlan, who remains second ahead of Zaqhwan.