GRT Yamaha’s Federico Caricasulo took a maiden victory in the World Supersport Championship in a dramatic Thai race which saw all key title challengers drop out.
The action was frantic from the start, with Thai wildcard Charlermpol Polamai swapping positions with pole man Jules Cluzel into Turn 1, whilst Niki Tuuli behind came close to disaster at Turn 5 with a near highside.
With Kenan Sofuoglu still out of action with a hand injury, the likes of Cluzel, PJ Jacobsen and Lucas Mahias needed to capitalise. However, disaster would strike all three.
MV Agusta’s Jacobsen hadn’t been having the best of weekends, and it got even worse on the third lap when his engine blew. At the end of the lap, Mahias pulled into pit lane with a bike issue, while Cluzel would fall out of the running six laps from home with a mechanical problem.
This left the second Thai wildcard, Decha Kraisart, and Caricasulo to duke it out for the victory, though they had Kyle Smith bearing down on them at a vast rate.
However, the British rider was handed a ride-through penalty for failing to drop three positions for an incident involving Christian Gamarino earlier in the race. Unaware of this, Smith ploughed on and was up to second when he was disqualified.
This confusion forced Kraisart to unwittingly defend second, allowing Caricasulo to dart off into the distance to become the second new WorldSSP winner this season. Kraisart and Tuuli completed the podium.
Thitipong Warokorn gave the massive home crowd something else to cheer about in fourth, with his temporary Puccetti team-mate Kyle Ryde coming home a tenth behind in fifth.
Hikari Okubo, fresh from surgery on a broken collarbone, was sixth on his CIA Landlords Insurance Honda, ahead of Kallio Racing’s Sheridan Morais, Lorini Honda’s Aiden Wagner, Go Eleven Kawasaki’s Kazuki Watanabe and Robin Mulhauser.
Roberto Rolfo recovered from 22nd on the grid to finish 11th, albeit 25 second away from the victory. Laclan Epis, Nach Calero and Davide Pizzoli were the last of the points finishers.
Orelac Racing’s Zulfahmi Khairuddin was forced to pull out with technical trouble early on whilst running inside the top five. He joined the aforementioned retirees, as well as Michael Canducci and Gino Rea on the sidelines.
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