Cluzel opens 2018 World Supersport account in Assen stunner

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Jules Cluzel was the only rider to resist Randy Krummenacher’s back of the grid charge to take his first victory of the 2018 World Supersport campaign in a thriller at Assen.

In a frantic opening couple of laps with the front-runners dicing for position, Cluzel regained the lead at the start of lap two and defended valiantly from defending champion Lucas Mahias before the GRT Yamaha rider was pushed off line at the Gert Trimmer chicane to drop back a handful of places.

That allowed Raffaelle De Rosa to become the nearest challenger to Cluzel for the middle third of the race but the MV Agusta rider couldn’t replicate the French rider’s pace at the front.

Meanwhile, Bardahl Evan Bros Yamaha rider Krummenacher continued to slice his way up the order from the back of the grid to eventually take second place in the closing laps from De Rosa before his final corner attack came up short and he was forced to settle for second behind Cluzel.

Krummancher's second place sees him cut Mahias’s championship lead to just one point with the French rider narrowly missing out on the podium in the three-way sprint for the finish line with De Rosa holding on to third place for his maiden podium of the year.

Sandro Cortese has slipped back to third place in the World Supersport championship for Kallio Racing Yamaha despite his dominant pole position at Assen, while Niki Tuuli secured an impressive sixth place for CIA Landlords Insurance Honda ahead of local star Rob Hartog.

Thomas Gradinger scored his best result of the year in eighth place for NRT Yamaha ahead of Loris Cresson and Hannes Soomer.

Ayrton Badovini just missed out on the top ten for MV Agusta but finished comfortably ahead of Andrew Irwin, who claimed his maiden World Supersport points, as Wayne Tessels, Eemeli Lathi and Luke Stapleford rounded out the points places – with the latter given a post-race time penalty for a mid-race clash with Federico Caricasulo which saw the Italian rider crash out.