PROGP Racing Finishes The First ASBK Weekend On A High

With Reece Oughtred replacing the injured Archie McDonald, ProGP Racing Junior Team made its debut in the mi-bike Motorcycle Insurance Australian Superbike Championship, presented by Motul, for Round 2 at Winton Motor Raceway.

Oughtred competed in the Dunlop Supersport 300 and Yamaha Finance R3 Cup classes finishing with five top 5 on 6 races and a very positive feedback for the recently born team.

First weekend of racing in this season for the ProGP Racing and its Junior Team in partnership with JDS Moto, as the recently born team just made its debut in the Supersport 300 class of ASBK Championship at Winton Motor Raceway with the rider Reece Oughtred, who stepped in replacing Archie McDonald due to his injury while training.

Oughtred had to use Friday free practices to find the right feeling with the bike, never tested before, and he made a very good job riding alone, improving session by session his laptime and pace, working together with the team to find the right setup for Saturday and Sunday races.

The young Australian made a big improvement on Saturday, qualifying himself in fourth position in the SS300 class and 6th in the R3 Cup, completing two good qualifying sessions, having then a very good Supersport 300 race 1 finished in P4 not so far from the podium, while on the R3 Cup the race was conditioned by some light rain, which didn’t help Reece to find the right feeling, ending in P12.

Sunday day was the best one for the team, which had been competitive and at the front in all the races, with 4 top 5 finishes out of 4 races, as Oughtred made very good improvements especially on race pace, getting his best results ever in the ASBK Championship and a very good debut for the team in its first appearance.

Now it’s time to prepare round 3, for which the team hopes to recover permanent rider Archie McDonald.

Omar Menghi – ProGP Racing Team Owner: “First of all, it has been amazing to see our bikes running outside Italy and Europe in Australia in the ASBK Championship and I’m very proud about the work we all made to figure this out and I want to thank Jake Skate, JDS Moto, riders and all the sponsors which helped us to make this possible.

“On the racing part, considering Reece never raced with our bike, I couldn’t expect any better and I’m very happy about the results we achieved. Reece improved race by race and I hoped he could get a podium because he really deserved it. Anyway, he made a very good job as well as all the team and now we can’t wait for round 3 for which I hope to see Archie back”

Jake Skate – ProGP Racing Junior Team Manager: “We had a really positive weekend at Winton, firstly my best wishes to Archie to recover soon, but on a good side, we had a really positive weekend with our replacement rider Reece Oughtred. Reece was able to improve on his previous best time at Winton by over one second and worked well with our team and showed great speed always fighting at the front. I’d like to thank Reece for taking this opportunity to ride with us at Winton, and without a test was able to be in the lead group all weekend”

Reece Oughtred – ProGP Racing Junior Team Rider: “WOW! What a weekend! The ProGP Racing R3 was on point all round. We worked really hard on Friday, not having ridden the bike before and I am very happy with my qualifying times and race results. The team worked really well all weekend and my results showed it… I’m happy about how the weekend went and I can’t wait to come back on track.