Positive Qualifying for Locatelli Unconverted in Race 1 at Cremona
Pata Prometeon Yamaha’s Andrea Locatelli lined up for his best Race 1 start position of the season at Cremona in Italy today, for Round 9 of the FIM Superbike World Championship.
The #55 rider from Bergamo will have to wait until tomorrow to try to convert the strong qualifying to a podium result in front of his home fans though. Locatelli proved his mettle with an aggressive start to Race 1 – but was unable to fight to keep hold of third position, struggling with a lack of rear grip as the race developed. A small error while riding on the limit into Turn 11 saw him run off track, with no laps left to recover positions when the race was red-flagged prematurely.
Niccolò Canepa, replacing Jonathan Rea for this weekend while he recovers from injury, enjoyed his day on the Yamaha R1 WorldSBK gaining valuable data for the team. Canepa was running inside the points-paying positions in P14, engaged in a close battle with Scott Redding, when the Italian rider suffered a small crash and retired from the race.
Pata Prometeon Yamaha now look to reset for the final day at Cremona which begins at 9:00 CEST for Warm Up, Superpole Race at 11:00 and Race 2 at 14:00.
SUPERPOLE RESULTS
RACE 1 RESULTS
Andrea Locatelli – SP: P5 / Race 1 P12
“In the end, the Race 1 results are “wrong” because I never expect to finish behind like this – and especially also because I made a mistake in braking for Corner 11. I was riding to the limit on every lap and just I couldn’t recover there. We need to look forward to tomorrow to try to improve and stay more in front, and try to close the gap in Sector 2 and Sector 3 – that point is where we lost quite a lot. We will see what we can do, we try to improve and I hope that we can find a solution, especially for the races tomorrow to make a step forward to try to get good results. I believe that we can do it, but we are just stronger in the first and last sectors – in the other we struggle and so we need to keep working in that area. I was quite happy after the Superpole and quite positive ahead of the race for everything working well, but maybe the condition of the track and the different tyre didn’t help to find the feeling that we want. We need to look at what we can do and try again tomorrow.”
Niccolò Canepa – SP: P19 / Race 1: DNF
“I’m sorry for the team with the crash, I did not want to end the race like that! Until that moment, I was enjoying it, fighting with Scott Redding – and for my first appearance in WorldSBK for a long time it was quite a good position, I was in the points zone and then I had a small crash a few laps from the end but luckily no consequences. I am still trying to understand how to ride this bike properly and how to improve my feeling in the race weekend, but I hope this work that we are doing is going to be helpful for Jonathan, for Loka and the other Yamaha riders. So, let’s see tomorrow what we can do, if we can do another step and maybe score some points.”
Paul Denning – Team Principal, Pata Prometeon Yamaha
“Positives and negatives to take from “Race Day 1” here at the new circuit of Cremona. Negative of course that Jonathan isn’t here racing with us this weekend – any team in the world would miss a rider like JR when he’s not on their bike! However, it is a pleasure to do our best to help Nico enjoy his last weekend as a professional racer – and to do his best in terms of performance. Loka qualified super well to start P4 on the grid, which we felt would be really important starting on this tight and twisty circuit. Unfortunately, right from the start of the race he suffered from a significant lack of rear grip. The possible causes are a combination of both tyre choice and improvements we need to make to balance the set-up. He overrode his R1 a little to compensate in the early laps and got sucked into the P5 battle – unfortunately, running off at the end of the long straight in a fight with Axel Bassani just before the red flag came out. Nico enjoyed his 15 laps and was riding really well, running a similar pace to some high quality, regular championship riders – but, unfortunately lost the front at Turn 10 and went down. A tough day in terms of results, but some positive potential for us to regroup and go again tomorrow.”
