Can Oncu sets the pace in the WorldSSP qualifying in Portimão.

The Yamaha R9’s positive start to the 2025 FIM Supersport World Championship continued as Round 2 of the series got underway at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve today with a 1-2 in Superpole for Can Öncü and Lucas Mahias.

After a strong test at the Portimão circuit two weeks ago, Öncü got off to a strong start on Friday topping free practice by 0.048 seconds before going on to assert his position in the Superpole session, storming to the top spot by 0.5 seconds on the Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing R9 to take his maiden WorldSSP pole.

The Turkish young gun is joined on the front row by 2017 World Supersport Champion Lucas Mahias (GMT94 Yamaha), who leaped to second on the timesheets to make it an R9 1-2 in the closing stages of the session.

Joint championship leader Stefano Manzi (Pata Yamaha Ten Kate) will start from the second row in sixth.

Class rookie Aldi Satya Mahendra (Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing) will line up 15th with Michael Ruben Rinaldi (GMT94 Yamaha) 20th. Yuki Okamoto, who makes his World Supersport debut this weekend after missing Round 1 in Australia through injury, will start
28th for Pata Yamaha Ten Kate as he faces the challenge of learning the notoriously tricky Portimão circuit.

Can Öncü (Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing) 1st – 1’42.944
“I am very happy! I do not know what to say, I have been waiting a long time for this! This weekend everything is coming together nicely for us so I wanted to say thank you to Yamaha because I feel this is the first time I can show my potential after some very long years. Of course, tomorrow the target is the same for everyone – but we will try to finish the mission and if we do that, I think we can say we’ve done a good job!”

Featured Image: Yamaha Racing