While Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team) was out in front at Donington Park, a few riders were quietly impressing as they searched for their best result in the FIM Supersport World Championship. One of these was Adrian Huertas (MTM Kawasaki) as he claimed fourth place in Race 2 during the Prosecco DOC UK Round while he also racked up an impressive 23 points across the round, the most he has scored in a single round since graduating to WorldSSP.
In Friday’s Free Practice 1, held in mixed conditions, Huertas completed 16 laps and his best time was around half a second down on pacesetter Stefano Manzi (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) as he finished seventh. Friday’s Free Practice 2 was held in wet conditions and the 2021 WorldSSP300 Champion was one of a handful of riders who did not set a time with track conditions worse than in FP1 thanks to the rain.
On Saturday, Huertas took fifth place in the Tissot Superpole session as he lapped around eight tenths down on Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team) as the Italian obliterated the eight-year-old lap record. 19-year-old Huertas narrowly missed out on P4 on the grid when fellow Kawasaki rider, Lucas Mahias (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing), pipped him by just 0.003s. In Race 1, Huertas was in the podium fight before dropping out of it in the closing stages of the 19-lap race as he finished in sixth, 12 seconds off the podium.
The gap to the podium reduced by a huge eight seconds in Race 2 as Huertas finished just four seconds off the rostrum in fourth. He was also just eight seconds down on Bulega in Race 2, a gap that reduced from 18 seconds in Race 1, as Huertas made a step forward to secure his best-ever result in World Supersport since making his debut in 2022. His 23-point haul from the UK, beating his previous best of 16 from the 2023 Emilia-Romagna Round.
Talking about his weekend, Huertas said: “It was a positive weekend. Little by little, race by race, I am recovering the feelings that I lost after the injury. The results are on show and both me and the team are making progress. I’m still not 100%, I have some discomfort, but I’ve learned to live with it. When you come back from an injury and don’t win, you need more time on track. In FP2 we decided not to go out on track, so I was able to do very few laps over the weekend. I hadn’t been able to try a long run either, so we went into the race a bit blind. But we knew how to solve it quite well.
“On Saturday, I had problems with the bike. The team made a small mistake in the choice of tyres and, in the race, we had a problem with the fuel pump, which gave me a failure and I was losing between half a second and eight tenths per lap. On Sunday. we went out with everything more in order and I was where I should have been.”
Expanding on his best WorldSSP result and weekend, Huertas added: “This will be the trend until the end of the season. I think they are the positions that I deserve. Imola will be a more complicated weekend because I don’t know the track. I’ve never been, when I was in WorldSSP300 it was the year we didn’t race there due to Covid-19, and we haven’t been back until now. It will be a somewhat more complicated weekend, but we’ll get it right. Then there are circuits that I quite like.”
Huertas is getting closer to the front of the field, a trend he showed in his first season before his injuries in Australia this year disrupted his season. He effectively missed both races at Phillip Island and Mandalika before returning at Assen and showing his potential again as WorldSSP returned to Europe. Currently 12th in the Championship, the Spaniard will be looking to burst into the top ten sooner rather than later; he is currently five points behind Can Oncu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) in tenth.
Discussing how far he is from his rivals, Huertas said: “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have much to do, I think I have nothing to envy of the riders ahead of me. The problem is that, due to certain aspects, I am not being able to reach them, but I hope to continue working with the team as up to now and find something. Even if the Kawasaki is at a disadvantage, we can replace it.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com