Soomer takes dominant maiden EJC win at Assen
Round 2 – The Netherlands
TT Circuit Assen, Netherlands
Hannes Soomer (Auto24Ring) has come out on top at the end of the 11-lap WIL Sport European Junior Cup race at TT Circuit Assen. Starting from pole position, the 18-year-old Estonian rider took the lead on board his Honda CBR650F on the opening lap when Dorian Laville (Team Laville Mi&Do) ran slightly wide at turn five. Once at the front the third-year EJC rider never looked back and, by the end of the fifth lap, his margin on the chasing pack had grown to 1.9 seconds. Soomer smartly managed the gap in the remaining laps to claim his maiden win in the series.
With opening race winner Harun Cabuk (KNN54-TMF) crashing out at turn 10 on the sixth lap while he was well in contention for honours, the battle for the remaining podium positions went down to the wire with Laville edging out Spain’s Mika Perez (Granshagen Racing Team) by 0.122s.
Fourth place went to Richard Bodis (H-Moto Team), who had the better of Italians Alfonso Coppola and Paolo Grassia, both riding for the Chiodo Moto Team. The top 10 was completed by South Africa’s Troy Bezuidenhout (Into The Blue Diving-Costa del Sol), Germany’s Gabriel Noderer (Noderer Racing), Byron Bester (Hi-Tech Racing) from South Africa and Romain Lecarpentier from France.
Avalon Biddle (Avalon Biddle Racing) was once again the fastest in the Women’s European Cup with an eleventh-place finish. The WIL Sport European Junior Cup will return to action at Donington Park on May 27-29.
Hannes Soomer
1st
It’s been a perfect weekend for me, firstly with yesterday’s pole position and now with my maiden EJC win. I really felt comfortable on my Honda CBR650F machine, so once I took the lead I knew I could ease away. I now head the standings ahead of the next race at Donington; there’s quite a big break until then but I can’t wait to get back on track.
Gerry Bryce
Series manager
It’s been the most typical of Assen’s race weekends, with very difficult conditions on Friday. In the end, we were very lucky to have a dry race that turned out to be a fabulous one, which made up for the weather encountered the previous two days. Hannes’s strategy was perfect: he was able to control the whole race although Dorian, Harun and Mika tried to give him a hard time, at least at the beginning. I would like to thank WIL Sport and Honda for their invaluable support.