AKENOSPEED Yamaha’s Soichiro Minamimoto carried an excellent free practice and qualifying performance through to a convincing win in Supersport 600 race one. In doing so, he denied Yamaha Thailand’s Peerapong Boonlert the chance to equal the all time class record for seven consecutive wins.
The Japanese wildcard, who had squeezed Peerapong Boonlert out to the middle of row one in morning qualifying, had a poor start and watched from behind as the championship leader got away with Hong Leong Yamaha’s Kasma Daniel Kasmayuddin at the front. Musashi Boon Siew Honda’s Azroy Hakeem Anuar clashed and crashed with MOTOBUM Honda’s Arakawa first time around at turn one; both riders were unhurt.
By lap five of ten Peerapong was having trouble holding his lines on Suzuka’s long turns. As Kasma sensed the opportunity and turned up the heat, Minamimoto closed in to join the battle for the win. Kasma was first past the Thai Yamaha R6, closely followed by the Japanese. Minamimoto took the lead on the penultimate lap and immediately put some clean air between himself and Kasma, while Peerapong settled for third on his unusually unruly Yamaha.
Five seconds behind Peerapong, Yuto Sano just beat Adam Norrodin to the line to finish fourth, while Kyosuke Okude was sixth ahead of Afif Amran, Rheza Danica Ahrens and AP Honda duo Kritchaporn Kaewsonthi and Passawit Thitiwararak.