2020 Phillip Island World Supersport Race Result: Pit Stop Penalties

World Supersport has slick tyres available to them for the first time, and for safety, there is a mid-race pit stop for a tyre change. No more than ten laps can be raced on one rear tyre, and at least forty five seconds must be spent in the pits.

The red light was held a little longer than seemed safe which caused Randy Krummenacher to start and stop, giving him a jump start, but it didn't matter as his start was ruined and he tried to make up the lost time in the first turn, crashing his MV Augusta as he tried to pass everyone on the outside. Andrea Locatelli took the lead from pole position, ahead of Lucas Mahias, Jules Cluzel and Raffaele de Rosa. On lap two, de Rosa left up to second place in turn four, passing Cluzel and Mahias and setting the fastest lap in the process. Cluzel followed de Rosa, regaining third place. Corentin Perolari and Philipp Oettl held on to the back of the leading six, but Locatelli started to break free of the five riders behind him.

As Andrea Locatelli dragged out a gap of a second from second place, Lucas Mahias slipped into third place in turn one of lap four. Three laps later, before anyone had changed their tyres, Philipp Oettl overcooked turn two and crashed out of the group of five riders contesting second place. 

At the start of lap eight, Raffaele de Rosa and Jules Cluzel dropped in for new tyres. Cluzel got a new front tyre as well and left ahead of de Rosa, incurring a tiny penalty for his error, to be added to the end of the race. Two laps later, the leading trio pitted in and after eleven laps, they were all back on the track in a coherent order.

Andrea Locatelli led Raffaele de Rosa and Jules Cluzel by three and a half seconds with Lucas Mahias and Corentin Perolari almost three seconds further back. Jules Cluzel had a penalty of only eight hundredths of a second, so he would not be affected by it unless he had a rider very close to him on the track over the line. The other five riders with penalties had penalties between a second and thirteen seconds, but they were all outside the top five. 

As the race progressed, Locatelli kept stringing out his lead, ending the race six seconds in the lead. Raffaele de Rosa held off the constant pressure from Jules Cluzel  and the pair finished in second and third places, rounding out the podium. Behind them, Lucas Mahias and Corentin Perolari traded places throughout the last lap, with Perolari coming off best, taking fourth place ahead of Mahias. 

Andrea Locatelli won his first race in the series convincingly ahead of veteran riders Rafaelle De Rosa and Jules Cluzel. Reigning champion Randy Krummenacher left with no points. 

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