WorldSBK Portimao: False neutrals almost derailed Manzi’s maiden win

Stefano Manzi secured the debut WorldSSP victory for the Dynavolt Triumph project in Saturday’s first race at Portimao.

Of all the new ‘Next Generation’ bikes on the Supersport grid in 2022 maybe the Triumph Street Triple RS was the least likely one to win a race. Sure, it competed in British Supersport last season, but it was not the stand-out bike.

This year in WorldSSP the Yamaha has still been the bike to beat, and the Ducati has been the best of the Next Gen iron horses. But there we were on Saturday at Portimao, with Manzi and Triumph the best of the new breed, even on the most road bike derived one of the lot.

The Dynavolt Triumph team is, of course, the PTR team of WorldSSP reknown but they have not won a race since 2016, until Portimao. So a race win this year looked unlikely to many. How was this first Next Gen win achieved, and why by the Triumph and not the Ducati or MV Agusta?

“It’s not a simple answer,” Team Principal Simon Buckmaster said when asked why them and not the others? “If you look at the balancing rules, obviously our bike is not faster, his is better than mine, all that sort of stuff. But you have to say, it looks about right. It could have been us. It could have been Bulega [on the Aruba Ducati].

“It was us. I can only say I’m really proud of our team and the job we’ve done, and happy to work with Triumph. To actually do it with a road bike - it is in the ethos of the class. We took a road bike with no fairing, put a fairing on it, old style production racing and made it a winner. That’s a tribute to Triumph, it’s a tribute to the team and everyone involved.”

Triumph has previously been a bit reticent to get too involved in racing, so for those who decided to go along with the Next Generation