Bo Bendsneyder’s (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) home round in the Netherlands’ TT Assen Circuit bore fruit for the Dutchman, claiming his second win of the season in Race 1, and his fifth podium of the season through a P3 finish in Race 2. On top of winning glory in front of his home crowd; in the larger picture of the Championship, it was an important set of results for Bendsneyder. With his P1 and P3, he was able to not only keep pace with Stefano Manzi (Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing), the FIM Supersport World Championship’s current points leader for the Riders’ Championship, but he was able to keep chipping away at his lead as he did in Portimao, now the Italian just 14 points ahead.

In his Race 1 win, Bendsneyder started in P2, and watched Oncu jump out to a rapid start, establishing a gap alone at the front. From there, Bendsneyder consistently set faster laps than the Turkish star and cut away at his margin until in Lap 7 when he overtook the #61. From there, Bendsneyder left the grid behind and ended up finishing the race with a margin of more than three seconds. Race 2 was much harder fought for the Dutchman than his Race 1 win. From his P2 start, he became mired farther down in the pack, entering lap 2 in P6. It wasn’t until Lap 11 when he began to see daylight through the second group of riders, Aldi Mahendra (Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Team) -who was having his best race of his rookie season so far- ran wide, and Bendsneyder overtook Jaume Masia (Orelac Racing VerdNatura) to move him up to P4. The #11 was unable to catch Oncu or Manzi farther in front of him battling for the race win, but he benefitted from Tom Booth-Amos’s (PTR Triumph Factory Racing) misfortune of crashing out onto the gravel on Turn 10 of Lap 13.

On his Race 1 win, Bendsneyder said: “It feels amazing to be P1 at my home race, also today we had Jefferey in WorldSSP300 who won, so I think it’s a nice day for the Dutch fans, so I am happy to be here. It’s going quite well, After Australia with the big crash it was important to take points, then in Portimao came our first win, so here our target was to win again. This weekend we worked a lot on the race distance, and it showed in our really good race pace.”

Catch Bo Bendsneyder and the rest of the WorldSSP grid next time out at Cremona’s Acerbis Italian Round May 2^nd-4^th! Tune in live or watch it whenever you want with the WorldSBK VideoPass!