Pata Maxus Yamaha’s riders Andrea Locatelli and Jonathan Rea both made a valiant effort in face of difficult track conditions to bring home valuable points, in Race 1 of Round 10 of the 2025 FIM Superbike World Championship in Spain today.
Arid Aragon’s abrasive asphalt surface and challenging mountain circuit layout lived up to its reputation. Qualifying alongside each other, Rea P8 and Locatelli P9 in the rapid Superpole session, gave the pair a solid opportunity to get good starts from the third row when the lights went out. But it wouldn’t be so easy this time round, a rare race where the two Pata Maxus Yamaha riders weren’t able to make significant progress on the first lap in the tightly-contested WorldSBK field.
As the race developed, Locatelli was able to set a strong pace that saw him close onto the back of the leading group of six riders on Lap 9. A challenge for the podium remained out of reach as rear grip became a problem the latter stages, and “Loka” brought home seventh place at the chequered flag with a clear view to improve his Yamaha R1 WorldSBK set-up to take a step forward tomorrow.
From a positive qualifying, Rea was well into the fight for the first few laps but felt a similar lack of grip that adversely impacted his race this afternoon. The valuable data collected from both riders will help the team and Yamaha’s engineers to work on a solution overnight ready for Sunday’s two races.
The final day at MotorLand Aragon begins with a short Warm Up in the morning at 9:00 CEST, Superpole Race at 11:00 and Race 2 at 14:00.
FULL SUPERPOLE RESULTS
FULL RACE 1 RESULTS
Andrea Locatelli – SP: P9 / Race 1: P7
“In the end, the race had some positive points let me say – for the first two-thirds of the race distance I was fast, but then we struggled so badly with the rear grip. It was good to recover some positions and finish in seventh place, but I was trying to stay as close as possible to the front to fight for the top five with Alex. Unfortunately, in the last part of the race, I was in trouble with the grip. Keeping the focus on the positive things, because in the first ten laps we were really fast and strong. We didn’t make any mistakes, this was important in the race especially when we are in this situation – but, I want to look at the positive things, try to improve the bike and tomorrow we try to make another step and push hard.”
Jonathan Rea – SP: P8 / Race 1: P13
“I did a really solid lap in qualifying to start from the third row and give myself a good chance at a getaway in Race 1. I got a little bit blocked in T1 but made some really good passes on Lap 1 and 2 to get track position again. However, I felt a real lack of rear grip compared to this morning and yesterday, and then soon after from Lap 5 or 6, I really ran into front tyre problems where I struggled to turn the bike. I was having lots of moments on the edge of the tyre and the bike not turning because of front traction, I lost a lot of confidence not being able to turn and felt a bit like a passenger. That’s the first 18-lap run we’ve done, so it gives us some good data but for sure we need to change our base set up for tomorrow to optimise the grip levels here and potentially look into the harder option front tyre as well. We’ll analyse that tonight and try to understand what we need to do tomorrow – we need to be better and we’ll work hard to do that.”
Posted on September 27, 2025 by Michael Le Pard
