Lorenzo Zanetti won the fourth-round World Supersport championship race at Imola in Italy, his debut victory in the series and the home race for both him and title sponsor Pata. His Pata Honda team-mate, Michael van der Mark, finished second.

Starting from the front row of the grid, 27-year-old Zanetti shadowed pole-sitter Kenan Sofuoglu, matching his times in the early part of the race before the Turkish rider was forced to retire with a technical issue at the end of lap 13.

Sporting a special helmet in tribute to the late, great Ayrton Senna, Zanetti brought his Honda CBR600RR home two seconds ahead of van der Mark, who was forced to fight his way to the front after starting the race from sixth place on the grid.

Van der Mark now leads the World Supersport Championship on the same points total as Florian Marino, who finished third today. Zanetti is placed third in the series, which now heads to the UK for round five in two weeks’ time.

Lorenzo Zanetti: "It’s been an amazing weekend and it’s fantastic to win at my home race. I don’t have many words, but I want to thank everybody for all their work. I thought from Friday that I might be able to win, but I was under a lot of pressure for the race because it was my home race, and the sponsors’ home race! I was able to stay with Kenan [Sofuoglu] but after he pulled in I won the race and I want to dedicate the victory to Andrea Antonelli. This is for him."

Michael van der Mark: "It was a really good race. We tried some things in the morning's warm up and were immediately faster than we’ve been all weekend so I was really looking forward to the race. The start was OK but I was a bit too fast with the clutch and I lost some places. In the first few laps it was difficult to pass the other riders and I made some mistakes. Also, the wind was quite strong and I had to change the braking points a little. When I got up into third place I was quite fast and matching the times of Kenan and Lorenzo. Unfortunately Kenan had to retire and Lorenzo won the race, but to finish together with my team-mate at Pata’s home race is just an incredible job."