Following a year off in 2025, its second twelve month hiatus in three years, the Principal Insurance Masters Superbike Championship finally got back on track at Mondello Park on April 11th & 12th.
The Principal Insurance Supersport division provided most of the excitement despite a number of Pro riders cancelling their entries at the last minute. In their absence some of the Cup riders took their opportunity to go for the overall as well as Cup class wins. In race one the front row of, Adam Carey, Shane Mulligan and Alex O’Grady battled for the lead in the early laps, with Mulligan eventually fighting his way past Carey to take his maiden Cup and overall win. Carey took his first Supersport podium in second with Pro rider Des Mackessy third and Andrew Courtney fourth, on his first appearance at Mondello Park for thirteen years.
Sunday’s second and third Supersport races started with smaller grids, due to the unpredictable conditions, as many riders did not fancy taking a chance on the damp track following some rain induced delays. When round two eventually got underway it was Mackessy who lead, until once again Mulligan took over at the front. Newcomer Brian O’Malley moved into an impressive second before he crashed out, leaving Mulligan to take his second overall and Cup double of the weekend from Mackessy and Carey, with James Walsh taking the final Cup podium spot in fourth place overall.
The field was reduced even further for Race 3, as the temperature dropped and the track remained damp, and once again it was Mulligan who took the win from the impressive Michael Carr, on his Mondello Supersport debut, to take his third double win of the weekend, ahead of fellow Cup riders Carr and Joey Hennessy.
The start of the championship came too early for a number of Principal Insurance Superbike riders, but the small field was not short of quality. Derek Sheils took three wins but had to fight hard for the first two. In Race one it was Andrew Whearty and Brian McCormack that held the initiative, before Sheils took over to open his account for the season. Race two followed a similar pattern with Sheils again taking a narrow victory from Whearty. In race three the vast experience of the former Superbike champion showed as he completed his hat-trick in the trickiest conditions of the weekend. The opening Cup class win went to Jack Whearty, but he struggled in the damp conditions of races two and three and fell down the order as newcomer Darren Geraghty took two highly impressive victories along with second overall in the final race of the weekend to lead the Cup championship on his first appearance in the Superbike class.
With the Megabikes Supertwin ranks now including some very fast Sportbike machinery, the speed differential between them and the slowest Production Twins has grown so big that the Production machines and the Supertwin class will race separately for the remainder of the Principal Insurance Masters season. The new arrangement is designed to allow the Production riders to get on with their race without having to look over their shoulder from half way through, and should also allow the Supertwins to race with the hazard of lapping much slower machinery so regularly. With the Production class swapped to the Moto 400 grid the change resulted in some quality racing in both classes.
Race one in the Super class went to class debutant Fionn O’Connell, with British Sportbike racer Hayden Clinton second and Finnan Wherity third. The second race was not completed due to a number of red flags and has been scheduled for a re-run in June, when the series is back on the National Track. The third race did go the distance, with Wherity taking victory this time from O’Connell and Ian Lynch.
The Megabikes Production Twin class produced one win for Alexander Rowan and two for Michael Dunleavy. Rowan finished on the podium in all three races, as did Dunleavy, with newcomer Jake O’Sullivan joining them twice and Jeff Quilter once. The concurrent Moto 400 class was dominated by the modern Kawasaki of Dale Hyland with the youngster taking three wins. Roy Werst and Liam Dunne, on more traditional Moto 400 machines, pushed hard for the top step but had to settle for second and third on each occasion.
The first two DM Groundworks Junior Supersport and Moto1 races brought easy victories for Fionn Stephens, with the Spanish Supersport 300 Championship regular on a different planet to his rivals. Race one’s winning margin was over seventeen seconds, while the gap grew to more than half a lap in the second race. With nothing to be proved in race three, Stephens sat it out opening the way for Bailey Dobson and Alanna Maher to fight over the final victory. Dobson eventually pulled clear in the lead to beat Maher with Jordan McGahon third. In DM Groundworks Moto1, Joel Haire took the final win of the weekend as the race one and race two victor, Hubert Tomaszewski, did not arrive on the grid for race three.
The final solo class race wins of the weekend, in the VTL sponsored Classic Superbike and Pre Injection classes, went to Mick Prendergast who took all three victories. In the Pre-Injection division, Liam Concannon took the opener, but race one runner-up Vincent Long bounced back to take races two and three. The sidecars produced a strong grid for their season opener with Paul Clarke and Stephen Daly winning on Saturday and Derek Lynch and Anthony McDonnell winning both of Sunday’s races.
The next three rounds of the Principal Insurance Masters are scheduled for May 16th and 17th on the longer Mondello Park International Track where many of the missing Superbike and Supersport Pro’s are expected to make their season debut.
For information on the build up to Rounds 4 – 6 see www.masterssuperbike.ie or follow the championship on social media.
