It wasn’t the debut that Michael Dunlop hoped for at the Imatra road circuit. On the 60th anniversary of the track dedicated to Jarno Saarinen, the 21-time TT winner took part in the Finnish round of the International Road Racing Championship for the first time, riding a Honda CBR1000RR-R. Unfortunately though, technical problems saw him forced to wave the white flag in both race 1 and race 2.
The Tourist Trophy stars were represented by Gary Johnson, a wildcard entry in the Supersport race with a Triumph, who scored a solid sixth place finish in race 1 (won by Petr Najman) before reaching the podium in race 2, closing third behind Jorn Hamberg and Marek Cerveny.
Erno Kostamo dominates among the 1000s
With Michael Dunlop’s unfortunate exit, the 1000 class was dominated by Erno Kostamo at Imatra. In the first race, the BMW rider beat David Datzer and Pierre-Yves Bian to finish first, and then did triumphed once again in race two, crossing the line ahead of Lukas Maurer and David Datzer.
As for the Italian entries, Luca Gottardi did well to finish twelfth in both race 1 and race 2, competing for team Penz13. The Italian road racer will be back in action alongside the rest of the IRRC field over the weekend of 23-24 July in Chimay, Belgium, the stage for the third round of the championship.
Translated by Heather Watson
GT, Valentino Rossi applauded by his team-mate: “The podium’s close”