Round four of the WorldSSP championship draws to a close at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit with the second and final race, in which PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda riders Adam Norrodin and Tarran Mackenzie battled hard, also with each other, to cross the line a very close twenty-second and twenty-third.

A short morning warm-up session gave the riders and their technicians the opportunity to make some final adjustments to their CBR600RR machines. This, in preparation for the second and final race of this fourth WorldSSP round, which ran at 12.30pm local time in dry conditions, despite a rain shower earlier in the morning. From row nine of the grid, Norrodin was lying twenty-fifth as the race got underway but soon made up one position. Team-mate Mackenzie, twenty-ninth through the first laps, picked up the pace a few laps in, moving up into twenty-fifth position, right behind his team-mate, and demonstrating very similar pace. Moving up two positions apiece, Adam and Tarran were able to maintain a good rhythm and were so similarly matched in the final stages that they got into a good battle for twenty-second position through the last laps. It was the Malaysian that ultimately got the better of the Brit, crossing the line less than a tenth of a second ahead of his team-mate but both put in a solid performance, bouncing back after a more challenging race 1.

Having now completed four of twelve rounds, Mackenzie holds 15 championship points and lies sixteenth in the standings, while Norrodin places twentieth with nine. The team now looks ahead to round 5 of the championship, taking place on 2-4 June at the Misano World Circuit.

Adam Norrodin P22

“I expected it to be more difficult today after the issues we had yesterday, so I was surprised actually. In the early stages I was able to stick with the guys in front, but our power disadvantage means that I’m constantly gaining and then losing ground to those immediately ahead. I did my best to manage my tyres and see if I could find a way to make up something in the final stages but that wasn’t really possible. But I’m pleased that we have more data and know that we are able to fight with the others, so now we need to work to put it all together for the next races.”

Tarran Mackenzie P23

“My pace was perhaps a second a lap quicker than yesterday and more consistent. We didn’t change so much on the bike for race 2, I guess it was more down to me actually. We’d made a small change in morning warm-up and I hadn’t really had enough time to test that so perhaps I was a little nervous in the first laps of the race as to how the bike would behave but then I able to improve the pace once I understood more. This was probably the most I’ve struggled so far this year in terms of getting up to speed and prepared for the races, so I’m happy to finish where we did today, and the fact we completed the race means we have more data to work with. A step up from race 1, which is our ongoing goal of course, to keep moving forward and improving. So hopefully we can keep going like this and make another step in the next races.”

Full Results