Michael van der Mark is 20-years-old, yet in only his second race of the Supersport World Championship motorbike racing season, he has scored another podium.

He is no two points away from leading the title race – two points from Fabien Foret, a 40-year-old French motorcycle racer who won in the scorching Spanish heat in Aragon this weekend, with van der Mark finishing runner-up.

In his first race, the Dutchman managed an impressive third. The result now means Foret leads the championship with 38 points to van der Mark’s 36. And there are still 12 races to go before the penultimate motorbike race of the season in India on November 17.

“I’m really happy to be back on the podium and to be in second place in the championship,” explained van der Mar, who looked confident under the shade of an umbrella before the 18-lap race. “The guys have done a really good job all weekend and now I’m really looking forward to Assen.”

Despite Kawasaki dominating, the Dutchman is making huge strides with his Honda.

van der Mark added: “I made a really good start and passed the fastest guys and I tried to push but I had not such a good feeling with the bike today. It was very different to how it was in practice and it’s a shame we could not have done a little bit more.

“I tried to stay with Fabien (Foret) and Sam (Lowes) when they passed me but it was too risky. I saw that the guy behind wasn’t catching me so, although I kept pushing, I wasn’t on the limit because I felt that another podium would be a good result.”

But it was technical co-ordinator Pieter Breddels who could not hide his excitement.

“We don’t know what to say,” he said. “It’s amazing, actually. Yes, some of our competitors had some bad luck but we’re still very, very happy. We must keep calm now and see what we can do in Assen (Netherlands), but I think we can do good things there.”

With his home race in the Netherlands on April 28, could Michael van der Mark not only make it three podiums in a row, but perhaps even win the race? We certainly think so.