Toprak ended his season second overall but he and his fellow Ninja ZX-10RR riders ensured that Kawasaki won the Manufacturers’ Championship at the final round.
Despite having less grip from the front tyre than he expected, Razgatlioglu pushed as hard as he dared and gave his all to try and make up a 14 point pre-race deficit to eventual champion Michael Ruben Rinaldi. In finishing sixth in Spain Rinaldi secured the title by just eight points, after nine rounds of intense competition.
Illia Mykhalchyk (Triple M Racing Kawasaki) rode a strong race at Jerez to finish second on the day, behind race winner Markus Reiterberger. He ended his season in ninth place overall.
Magny Cours race winner Jeremy Guarnoni (Pedercini Racing Kawasaki) was initially sanctioned to drop two places after an incident with another rider in the race in Spain. He was eventually given a 28 second time penalty, putting him 19th in the race. However, after double-checking the video footage of the incident, race direction reconsidered their decision resulting in a fifth position in the championship.
Wayne Tessels (Agro-On Benjan Kawasaki) was the next best placed Kawasaki rider after Razgatlioglu at Jerez, in 17th place, just out of the points on the final raceday.
Over a season in which Kawasaki eventually won the Manufacturers’ championship the Ninja ZX-10RR scored four wins from nine rounds, and three other podium places.
Toprak Razgatlioglu stated, “I rode my best race possible but there was little grip for all the riders. I also had a problem with tyre grip from the front. This was the best we could do today and we really tried to win the championship.”
In the WorldSSP300 championship race, also the season finale in this class, Scott Deroue (MTM HS Kawasaki) was in competition for the race win after taking the lead on the penultimate lap. He only lost out in the final few metres, second over the line by just 0.026 seconds, having exited the final corner at the head of a group of five riders.
Scott’s fourth podium of the year finally placed him in overall third place in the championship, 28 points behind the inaugural WorldSSP300 champion, Marc Garcia.
In all the Kawasaki Ninja 300 took its riders to three wins over the season, including a famous first ever win for a female rider in a fully open FIM World Championship class, earned by Ana Carrasco (ETG Kawasaki) at Portimao. Ana was 14th at Jerez, scoring two points and finishing the season ninth overall.
Scott Deroue: “It was a good weekend and also the bike performed well. In the race I had some problems when braking, but fortunately I was strong with my corner speed. I was glad to see I could fight for the podium and honestly I thought I had the win. But in the last meters of the race the Indonesian rider came across, just with the smallest margin of victory you could imagine. Of course I wanted to win, but I was glad to finish second, as I secured third place in the final standing with that result. Ending the season like this is something you hope for. The season was really up and down for me, but my two victories and this second spot in Spain motivate me to fight for the prizes again next year. I'm already looking forward to the 2018 season.”