Tarran Mackenzie scored his first Superbike World Championship points in his debut race in the sweltering heat at Donington Park today, taking 14th for the McAMS Yamaha team as they continue to make progress across the weekend.

There is no doubting the mammoth task at hand for the British Superbike Champions as they make their World Championship debut with a full WorldSBK-specification machine which they only finished building on Thursday evening, but Mackenzie has taken it in his stride making huge improvements every time he’s ridden the bike.

Mackenzie knocked a second off his quickest time from Friday in the final free practice session with a 1’28.615, before taking almost another second off that to set his quickest ever lap of the Donington Park Grand Prix circuit, bettering his time to 1’27.670 and earning 12th on the grid for the opening race.

The team were under no illusions that the opening 23-lap encounter would be a challenge, not only would it be their first time with a full fuel load, but it would also be the longest run so far for Mackenzie on the bike given the fact the practice sessions were sacrificed for bike familiarisation rather than race set-up.

After taking a strong start, Mackenzie held position in 12th where he’d remain for most of the race, with a steady gap to fellow Yamaha rider Andrea Locatelli ahead. As the race went on and the bike became lighter, Mackenzie encountered some issues he hadn’t had previously during the weekend leading to him losing out on a couple of places in the closing laps. He’d eventually cross the line 14th to take points in his first World Superbike race.

Now with a race worth of data under their belt, the team will work to further improve the bike overnight before the 10 lap Superpole race on Sunday morning ahead of the final race of the weekend, another 23-lapper at 14:00.

WorldSBK Donington Park Race 1 Results
1 Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK)
2. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +6.397s
3. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +9.449s
4. Scott Redding (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) +11.515s
5. Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Racing) +12.820s
6. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +14.482s
7. Garrett Gerloff (GYTR GRT Yamaha) +17.127
8. Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) +17.438
9. Loris Baz (Bonovo Action BMW) +24.903
10. Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) +28.498
11. Philip Oetll (Team Goeleven) +31.467
12. Lucas Mahias (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) +33.514
13. Xavi Vierge (Team HRC) +33.647
14. Tarran Mackenzie (McAMS Yamaha) +34.870
15. Leon Haslam (TPR Pecerdini Racing) +45.205