Locatelli Salvages P9 Race 2 Finish in Challenging Sunday for Pata Prometeon Yamaha
Pata Prometeon Yamaha and its riders Andrea Locatelli and Jonathan Rea gave their maximum in an attempt to grind out positive results at a challenging Round 10 of the FIM Superbike World Championship at Aragon in Spain, today.
A new asphalt surface and compromised qualifying performances proved to be highly-difficult walls to climb ahead of extremely strong WorldSBK competition in Sunday’s races.
Locatelli and Rea finished P11 and P12 in the Superpole Race sprint – a positive point of which was Rea recording his fastest time of the weekend on the final lap – before the final feature race of the weekend. When the lights went out this afternoon, Locatelli made another text-book excellent race start in Race 2 to gain two positions by the first corner – running P8 until Lap 2, when he took advantage of a mistake from Bulega to move into P7.
Unfortunately, Locatelli was unable to keep with the pace of the eventual podium-finisher and became vulnerable to the strength and depth of the premier class field around him as tyre degradation developed. “Loka” gritted his teeth, chasing Michael van der Mark and Iker Lecuona closely home after a mistake-free race to P9.
For teammate Rea, P12 and P13 results each tell the story of a “tough day at the office”. The Northern Irishman’s Superpole Race showed a stronger pace and good progress towards the end of the 10 laps, but a difficult opening few laps in Race 2 made recovery into the top ten places ultimately unsuccessful.
A well-deserved weekend off awaits before the penultimate round of the championship in just 11 days’ time at Circuito Estoril in Portugal, run back-to-back with the finale at Circuito de Jerez, Spain.
SUPERPOLE RACE RESULTS
RACE 2 RESULTS
Andrea Locatelli – SPRC: P11 / Race 2: P9
“We gave our maximum again this weekend and we just finish in P9 unfortunately today. The results are not what we want, but we give our all in every single session, we know we need to improve and we need to do more. I was happy in the Superpole, then we tried to do the maximum that was possible in the races. This morning we were in trouble after some laps with the tyres and today in the main race, also a little bit especially on the rear tyre. We need to understand why the track surface made everything so different compared to the past. It’s a bit more difficult for us, but anyway, we need to look forward. We have two more races, we can learn until the end of the year – maybe we can have an opportunity in Estoril and Jerez. I want to be positive until the end, I think this year is quite complicated because all competitors are so strong, but we try to do our best and look to make another step.”
Jonathan Rea – SPRC: P12 / Race 2: P13
“Super difficult end to the weekend – I didn’t make “bad” starts but had bad track position from Turn 1 and then lost positions on the back straight in quick succession. In the Superpole Race I had good pace at the end, I was going forward. But in the long race, I just had traffic and feel like with the Yamaha R1 you need clear track to really take advantage of all its strong points. Of course, when you’re in traffic you can’t do that and then I was vulnerable on the back straight. I got stuck behind Remy for a few laps, he passed me and I tried to pass him back – and then his pace wasn’t fast enough to go with the group. Finally, when I got past him, I was able to make some inroads to Bassani and Rinaldi but in the end, I just ran out of laps. Our pace wasn’t good enough, so it was a bit frustrating and a tough weekend overall.”
