Toparis runs away with opening Supersport bout at Phillip Island

ASBK 2023
Round Six – Phillip Island
Supersport Race One

Tom Toparis had made a big impact on his return from a season in British Supersport right from the off here this weekend at Phillip Island. Toparis had not thrown a leg over the Cube Racing prepared and Stop & Seal backed YZF-R6 before FP1 on Friday, nonetheless he was second in that opening session and then went on to top every session after that. The 22-year-old took pole position by six-tenths of a second, his 1m35.495 would have put him 13th on the Superbike grid.  Toparis also threw a leg over a Superbike he hadn’t seen before in the practice and qualifying sessions, however shaking that machine down was a little more problematic and he actually went slower on the YZF-R1 Superbike yesterday than he did on the YZF-R6 Supersport machine.

Toparis dominated the Australian Supersport Championship in 2019 before heading overseas. He recently took a year out for some corrective surgery on an arm problem before heading to the UK this year to contest the British Supersport Championship, and finished a highly credible third in that championship.  However, Toparis is not part of the Australian Championship battle here this season.

That war is currently led by Olly Simpson, the South Australian carrying a 13-point advantage over young Cam Dunker into this round. Fellow croweater Ty Lynch is also most certainly still in that game, only four-points adrift of Dunker.

Defending Champion John Lytras is a further 25-points down, a difficult round three at Queensland Raceway costing his championship defence dearly A recent injury suffered while riding motocross has prevented him from fronting the grid this weekend.

The lights went out at 1040 and it was Olly Simpson that took the early advantage ahead of Tom Toparis as Cam Dunker, Jonathan Nahlous and Ty Lynch gave chase. It appeared as though the race got underway a bit sooner than Toparis had expected, it is a long time since he raced in this series and he might have been caught unawares.

Toparis took the lead as they started lap two, up the inside of Simpson at turn one.  Simpson stuck with Toparis through the next few turns but Toparis then started to break away around the back of the circuit. Simpson does have a championship think about after all and didn’t want to get drawn into a balls to the wall contest with Toparis.   Jack Favelle went down at turn nine on that second lap.

Cam Dunker moved past Olly Simpson after the championship leader misjudged the wind at turn four and ran in too deep, that mistake cost him around two-seconds. Simpson then regrouped and got back down to business to keep Nahlous and Farnsworth at bay.

At the halfway point of the ten-lap race Toparis led Dunker by two-seconds, while Dunker had a second over Simpson. Nahlous was a few seconds further back in fourth with a small buffer over a heady battle that was unfolding over fifth place between Farnsworth, Lynch and Hayden Nelson.

Tom Toparis the victor by 2.7-seconds over Cam Dunker. Olly Simpson rounded out the podium a further second behind.

Dunker’s second place ahead of Simpson reduced the South Australian’s Championship lead to 11-points.

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Jonathan Nahlous a somewhat lonely fourth, his best ever result in the class.

Winning that heady battle over fifth place was Ty Lynch ahead of Jake Farnsworth and Hayden Nelson.

Tom Toparis’ first flying lap in that one a 1m35.266 before he backed things off and managed the gap.

Supersport Race One Results

Supersport Championship Points

ASBK 2023 Calendar