Fifty-one-year-old French legend Jean Bruno Pastorello sealed the Karo Cup at the Grand Prix of Indonesia by securing victory in race two on the first day of the 2023 UIM-ABP Endurance World Championship on Lake Toba in northern Sumatra.

Pastorello managed to fend off Rashed Al-Tayer from the start and edged away from his rivals as the race progressed. The multiple World Champion reached the finish 10.74 seconds in front of runner-up Anthony Radetic. Gyorgy Kasza of Hungary completed the podium and Frenchman François Medori and Thailand’s Permphon Teerapatpanich rounded off the top five after Al-Tayer dropped back to finish seventh behind Kuwaiti Rashed Al-Dawas.

Pastorello said: “I am very happy because I start first and I see the other racers. It was a difficult day but I did not change set-up. My jet ski work…Thanks to my team for a great job.”

Johan Johansson, Michele Cadei and Cseke Zsolt rounded off the top 10. The race two result meant that Radetic finished second in the Karo Cup behind Pastorello.

Eighteen competitors started the second 35-minute contest near the village of Tongging in the north of the lake and raced under the ‘United Spirit of Lake Toba’ banner. Lucky Limanjawa, Kylie Ellmers and Kanina Ramadgina missed out on race one but Ellmers was able to start the second race. After suffering technical issues in the morning’s encounter, Kuwait’s Yousef Al-Abdulrazzaq and China’s Chen Shen were not able to start.

Pastorello, nicknamed ‘The Hawk’, stole a march on race one winner Al-Tayer and moved into a lead of 3.64 seconds through lap one in slightly windier conditions to those that racers had experienced in race one. Kasza, Radetic and Medori trailed in their wake.

The leading quintet maintained their positions through the next lap and then Kasza managed to pass Al-Tayer and snatch second place. The struggling Emirati was then overtaken by Radetic and slipped to fourth place, as Pastorello’s advantage over Kasza grew to 10.67 seconds through lap four.

Medori also passed Al-Tayer to move up to fourth, as ongoing technical issues ruined Al-Tayer’s Karo Cup chances and pushed him down to sixth behind Permphon Teerapatpanich.

By the start of lap eight, Pastorello’s lead had grown to 11.60 seconds but the race was yellow-flagged temporarily when Cliff Ellmers ground to a halt on the course. His sister Kylie was down in 11th place and would eventually finish 15th.

Pastorello maintained a safe cushion over Kasza and Radetic and stayed clear of problems to secure victory and the Karo Cup but Radetic overtook his Hungarian rival with six minutes to run and snatched second place in the 15-lap race.

After the race, runner-up Radetic said: “So far, so good. I’m pretty excited about it. We (Kasza) came up on some traffic and he went on the outside. I don’t know why. It was pretty rough out there. I went right through. He was unlucky and I was lucky.”

Racers battle it out for the Dairi Cup on Thursday on a 2.89km course routed off the shores of the town of Silalahi to the south. Again, the Cup will be determined by finishing positions in a pair of 35-minute races. The two races get underway at 11.30hrs and 14.00hrs (local time). The cup is named after the Dairi Regency, an inland region of Indonesia on the west shore of Lake Toba.