Supersport World Championship practice at Magny-Cours: Mass crash caused by oil on the track

In the Supersport World Championship, there is only one 40-minute free practice session on Friday, with qualifying starting as early as 4 pm. When it began at 11.20 am, the temperature was already 27 degrees Celsius – it’s set to be a hot weekend.

After ten minutes, an engine failure on Raffaele De Rosa’s QJ caused oil to spill onto the track, bringing down Matteo Ferrari, Andreas Kofler, Federico Caricasulo, Valentin Debise and Tom Booth-Amos. The session then had to be suspended for some time to allow for a thorough track clean-up at Turn 15; at that point, Can Öncü was leading on the Ten-Kate Yamaha with a lead of over three tenths of a second, clocking a time of 1:40.142 mins.

When practice finally resumed, the lap times remained unchanged for the time being. At the halfway stage, Öncü was still in the lead, just 7/10 sec off his own pole record of 1:39.442 min set the previous year. With 15 minutes to go before the chequered flag, the Turkish rider – who had been testing with his team at the Circuit de Nevers-Magny-Cours during the long summer break – improved his time to 1:39.977.

Öncü’s fastest time remained unbeaten until the end; his Yamaha team-mate Roberto Garcia finished second, whilst Philipp Öttl (Feel Ducati), the only German in the field, made a name for himself by coming third.

Honda rider Corentin Perolari surprised everyone by finishing fourth on his home circuit, whilst his team-mate Ana Carrasco finished 27th out of 33 entrants, 2.356 seconds off the pace, having missed the final 12 minutes following a crash.

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