Wilcard Miralles takes opening EJC victory

Marc Miralles took the opening win of the 2014 European Junior Cup, powered by Honda Racing, at Aragon in Spain today after eight typical laps of frantic racing on Honda’s CBR500R machines.

The Spaniard has been racing in the Catalunyan 250 championship and raced at the 5.344km Motorland Aragon circuit as a wildcard but, immediately after the podium, stated his desire to continue for the rest of the 2014 campaign.

He was followed across the finish line by another Spaniard, Javier Orellana – the winning margin just 0.166s – while pole sitter Mika Perez made it an all-Spanish podium, crossing the line just one thousandth of a second behind Orellana.

Fourth and fifth places were also taken by Spanish riders – Augusto Fernandez and Ilan Fernandez (no relation) respectively – with Belgium’s Angelo Licciardi rounding out the top six.

“I’m really happy to take this win,” said Miralles after the race. “I had no idea that the standard would be so high and the CBR500R is really great fun to ride. I will do everything I can to compete in the rest of the championship.”

2014 European Junior Cup, powered by Honda Racing

Round 1 – Motorland Aragon, Spain (5.344km – 8 laps), race result:

1 Marc Miralles (ESP)

2 Javier Orellana (ESP)

3 Mika Perez (ESP)

4 Augusto Fernandez (ESP)

5 Ilan Fernandez (ESP)

6 Angelo Licciardi (BEL)

7 Hannes Soomer (EST)

8 Paolo Grassia (ITA)

9 Jesper Hubner (SWE)

10 Josh Harland (GBR)

Championship points after one of eight rounds:

Miralles 25, Orellana 20, Perez 16, A Fernandez 13, I Fernandez 11, Licciardi 10, Soomer 9, Grassia 8, Hubner 7, Harland 6.

Next round: Assen, The Netherlands – 25-27 April

More, from a press release issued by Michael Hill Promotions:

Alex Wisdom Claims Career Best EJC Finish In Sunny Spain

Alex Wisdom ride his CADS Racing Honda into a brilliant 13th position, his career best result in Europe at the opening round of the PATA European Junior Cup in Spain earlier today

Alex who had already achieved a personal best grid position for the 8 lap encounter was unlucky not to finish higher after having to take avoiding action to miss being involved in an accident with two of his rivals who fell right in front of the American in the early laps.

With the gap to leading group too big to bridge, Alex rode the rest of the race confidently, fending off last lap challenges from a number of riders to secure 3 championship points on the opening round of the year.

Analysis of the data after the race show clearly that the lap times achieved in the race were good enough to run within the top ten, had the early lap incident not happened.

Alex Wisdom – 13th position: “It was a decent race and I am really happy to improve my times once again. I have scored points in the opening round and already exceeded what we did last year. I am more prepared this year as I know what to expect and at Assen I will be giving it my all to get into the top ten – I know I can after today. Thank you to CADS Racing, my dad and everyone for getting me here again.”

Round two of the series takes place at Assen in the Netherlands in a fortnight.