Florian Marino (Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres) was one place behind Sofuoglu in the Donington round and is still the highest placed Kawasaki rider in the championship after five rounds, in second place and 14 points from the lead.
Early leader Sofuoglu was forced to slow at one time when smoke was evident from his machine but what he thought may possibly be a technical problem ended up being a piece of track debris which got jammed in between his bodywork and front wheel. This caused smoke and a smell that made Sofuoglu to slow down, allowing some riders to pass him. He got going again as it cleared and finished a strong fourth, only a fraction of a second from a podium finish.
In the championship Sofuoglu is now seventh, up two places from where he started at Donington.
Patrick Jacobsen (Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres) placed sixth on his Ninja ZX-6R with Roberto Tamburini (San Carlo Puccetti Racing Kawasaki) eighth and Roberto Rolfo (Kawasaki Team Go Eleven) tenth.
Alessandro Nocco (San Carlo Puccetti Racing Kawasaki) was again in the points, for 14th, with Tony Covena (Kawasaki Ponyexpres Intermoto) and Christian Gamarino (Kawasaki Team Go Eleven) 17th and 19th respectively.
The WSS teams head to Sepang in Malaysia for the very first time at the next round, with race day taking place on Sunday 8 June.
Kenan Sofuoglu: “It was another disappointing day for me because I was making a gap and if I needed to I could have gone half a second faster. I was just watching my pit board and they showed me that I was keeping the gap, then growing the gap. I was ahead by one second and everything was going good. Then I realised there was a problem. I was not sure what it was but I had to look down to see and to do that I had to slow down. I could smell something burning and felt the bike was being held back. I had to continue to get some points and after about three laps it cleared and I could push again. I could not catch the front guys again even though I was going a little faster. When you know you can win all these races but I get a different problem I cannot get a good result. It is very frustrating.”