Another Home Round For Kawasaki Puccetti Racing

Kawasaki Puccetti Racing will participate in its second home round of the 2023 WorldSSP season when the Imola round takes place between 14-16 July. Former World Champion Lucas Mahias will again ride in place of regular team rider, Can Öncü, who is continuing on his path of recovery from injury.

Frenchman Lucas has contested three rounds of the current championship on the Ninja ZX-6R, which features different technical specifications from the one he competed on previously – and with much success – before moving to the WorldSBK class with Kawasaki Puccetti Racing in 2021 and 2022.

Lucas is a nine-time race winner in WorldSSP racing and has previous experience competing at Imola. His best finish at the 4.936km long Italian parkland circuit was second place in 2017. He last raced at Imola in 2019, when the officially-titled Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari di Imola hosted its most recent WorldSSP event.

Lucas had a challenging second race at Donington Park last time out. Still, he increased his personal experience of the much-changed WorldSSP class, which now features several different engine configurations and displacements compared to Lucas’ previous appearances in the middleweight category.

After Imola, the Autodrom Most WorldSSP round in the Czech Republic takes place from 28 to 30 July.

Lucas Mahias stated: “I haven’t raced at Imola for a long time. I like the track and will do my best to enjoy it after what was a complicated Donington round. I want to be careful in practice and work to build my feeling with the track and, more importantly, find the best setup for my bike. In England, I realised that I needed to change my approach to the races and that I need to be even more determined in the early stages. The bike’s very competitive, so it’s up to me to harness its potential. This is our team’s home round, and so it will be important to score strong results in front of the fans.”

Adrian Huertas (MTM Kawasaki) enjoyed his best-ever WorldSSP finish of fourth at the most recent race in the championship, just over a week ago at Donington Park. Huertas is now the second-highest-ranked Kawasaki rider in the overall championship, in 12th place, with Öncü in tenth place.

John McPhee (Vince64 by Puccetti Racing Kawasaki) is a four-time Moto3 race winner, and he has already stood on a podium in WorldSSP at the opening round of the year at Phillip Island.

Tom Booth-Amos (Motozoo ME AIR Racing Kawasaki) clearly leads the ‘WorldSSP Challenge’ points ranking and secured his career-best race finish of overall sixth at his home round of Donington Park. The WorldSSP Challenge is a championship-within-a-championship for riders who only race at the European rounds of the overall WorldSSP series.

At Imola, Australia’s Luke Power (Motozoo ME AIR Racing Kawasaki) and Japan’s Yuta Okaya (Prodina Kawasaki Racing) will once more compete as WorldSSP Challenge riders.

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