LEWIS SEVENTH | Bikesportnz

Rangiora’s Jake Lewis battled his way to seventh overall at the weekend’s third round of the European Junior Cup road-race series in Misano, Italy.

The current New Zealand 600cc Superstock class champion managed to move up from his 12th spot on the starting grid to claim the top-10 result.

Lewis is now eighth overall in the championship standings, just one point behind the joint sixth-ranked riders, Dutchman Rob Hartog and Poland’s Artur Wielebski.

Lewis finished sixth at round one in Assen, in The Netherlands, while round two at Monza, in northern Italy, was cancelled due to weather and track conditions, meaning only two rounds have in fact been raced thus far.

The organisers have promised to add an extra race into one of the later rounds to ensure a full championship series is completed.

Austrian Lukas Wimmer converted pole position into a first victory in the competition as he dominated the Misano event.

Taking the holeshot, the Austrian youngster built up a commanding lead, eventually taking victory over the battling pair of Spaniard Christian Vidal and Australian Sepp Scarcella.

Behind the podium finishers, an intense battle raged between eight riders, with Spain’s Javi Orellana eventually securing a hard-fought fourth from flying Frenchman Jean Francois Demoulin and Italian wildcard rider Federico Fazzina in sixth.

New Zealand’s Lewis finished a fraction ahead of Norway’s Stinius Viking Odegard and American Brandon Kyee, who took ninth, three seconds ahead of Ukrainian Ilya Mikhalchik in tenth.

In the championship chase it is Vidal who holds a slender one-point advantage over Wimmer and the absent Polish rider Adrian Pasek – who won round one at Assen – but, with 10 points covering the top nine riders in the standings, the battle remains fierce as the series moves to Aragon, in Spain, for the next round on July 1.

EJC Series standings:

1. Christian Vidal 26

2. Adrian Pasek 25

3. Lukas Wimmer 25

4. Jean-Francois Demoulin 24

5. Javier Orellana 21

6. Rob Hartog 20

7. Artur Wielebski 20

8. Jake Lewis (New Zealand) 19

9. Giuseppe Scarcella 16

10. Stinius Viking Odegard 13

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