A set-up gamble in Sunday’s World Supersport round at Misano paid off for Australia’s Broc Parkes, winning his first race of the season to take over the series lead.

Parkes rode a perfect race at Misano to secure the team’s first race win of the season, marking his first with the ZX-6R in WSS after joining the team in the final rounds of last season.

Having qualified fourth fastest, Parkes was in line for a good result and his longed-for first win in Kawasaki colours came at one of his favourite circuits, after making a change to the machine set-up which worked well in real race conditions over all 22-laps.

“Unreal to win. It felt really good and I got a good start from fourth place on the grid,” Parkes said. “I was really concerned how the set-up would be for the race, because we made quite a big change for the start, so we did not know exactly where we were.

“It was a little bit of a gamble but it paid off in the end. I got out in front, got to the lead and looked back to see who was behind me. I could see he was not a championship contender, so I had to think about points as well.

“But I wanted a win, I really wanted to win so much, and at the end we took it. I could see some other guys were coming, but I just had to stay relaxed and control the race. First Kawasaki win for me and it feels good, and a great job from all the team.”

Parkes now leads the championship by five points from Chaz Davies, who led the race for a time, before Parkes swept past on lap five.