Supersport Donington: Booth-Amos stages a classy comeback, Yamaha take consolation

The British love feats like this. At Donington, the home track, Tom Booth-Amos starts with a penalty but fights back and wins Race 1 with arms aloft on the glorious Triumph. All while marking his 100th start in the series. Yamaha is defeated, but Albert Arenas finds consolation: the Spaniard is increasingly escaping in the World Championship.

Booth-Amos made life difficult for himself during Superpole. His third-fastest time went up in smoke due to a penalty for excessively slowing down in various sections of the track. So he found himself on the third row (ninth spot), an awkward position on a peculiar circuit like Donington. But it didn’t matter. Tom charged from the start, quickly carved through the pack, and once in the lead his only concern was ticking off the laps to the checkered flag. It’s his second World Championship win, after his breakthrough in Australia 2025.

The Turkish rider gave Yamaha false hope twice. First by stamping a Superpole lap that looked like a guarantee for a dominant Race 1. Then, after his customary all-out start, he began to fade, ending up a distant fifth—hardly helpful for keeping World Championship hopes alive. Because up front Albert Arenas, on the same R9, when he doesn’t win he still bags important points, exactly as the best riders coming from Grand Prix do. Second place isn’t a victory, but it’s still sweet as honey, because his closest pursuers stumbled. Debise is now 68 points back, Masia 92: there are still nine races to go, but those are gaps that are getting hard to bridge.

It has won six races, but at Donington the ZXMoto isn’t shining. Valentin Debise salvaged Race 1 with eight points from eighth place—too few, since Arenas up front (almost) never slips up. Maybe the ZXMoto had spoiled us: we mustn’t forget the triple is making its absolute World Championship debut, so a few off-days are to be expected. It went much worse for Jaume Masia, who crashed hard six laps from the end, throwing away a potential podium and a precious handful of points.

The little Ninja 636 is starting to deliver some satisfaction to Manuel Puccetti’s team. Spain’s Jeremy Alcoba, at the eighth World Championship round, managed to put all the pieces together from Friday, handing the Reggio Emilia squad an excellent third place. The satisfaction comes on the very day of the announcement of David Salvador, 23, as factory Supersport rider for 2027. We’re talking about the leader of the SportBike World Championship, the feeder series for production-derived racing. A fine talent who can give further momentum to the project.

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