Round five FIM Superbike World Championship Assen

Just five events into his WorldSBK career, Locatelli made great progress throughout the Dutch round. Having qualified seventh, he equalled his previous best result with fifth in Race 1, but it was on Sunday that the Italian really made his mark. The 24-year-old crossed the line in the podium places in the Superpole Race but was handed a one-place penalty for exceeding track limits on the final lap, demoting him to fourth. However, Locatelli got his redemption in Race 2, leading for the first half of the race before eventually running out of rear tyre and finishing in third, with Yamaha Motor Europe Road Racing Manager Andrea Dosoli thoroughly impressed by the performance.

“For sure, it has been the best-ever weekend for Loka,” Dosoli said. “We didn’t expect to see him fighting for the podium in only his fifth race of the season. No one has any doubt about his talent and thanks to the fantastic support from his crew, he’s adapting well to the WorldSBK class. It was amazing to see him leading the race without any mistakes, and it was nice to see his confidence improving also. He’s becoming more mature and it’s an important result for him going forwards. He can fight with the top guys and compete with them all race long. It’s clear confirmation that the Yamaha rider step-up program is working well, we have invested a lot in this system and we are pleased to see that we’ve been able to bring a young rider to the WorldSBK podium.”

“Toprak arrived at Assen as the championship leader – a completely new situation for him and the team,” Dosoli said. “I was really happy to see how well he performed on a track that in the past he’s not had the best results at. The crew was able to give him a competitive machine and the rider understood that he needed to change his riding style to give himself the best opportunity. He has been very unlucky and we didn’t get what we hoped for. We need to take home the positives – that he has shown great speed once again. He should keep this in mind for the remainder of the season in order to get his championship challenge back on track. It is a shame about what happened in Race 2, he lost a lot of points, so now we need to focus on the next events and getting the best results.”

“We cannot blame the Turn 1 incident on bad luck, as it was clearly a misjudgement on Garrett’s part. Garrett has shown he’s a great talent on numerous occasions already, but there are still areas for improvement. We will continue to work closely with Garrett to eliminate the errors that have cost him points more than once this season. He clearly has the potential to be a championship contender in the future, but to realise that potential he needs to better manage the situation in races, especially when he’s in a position to finish on the podium.”

“It was really nice to have Kohta back after he had to miss the Donington race,” Dosoli said. “You could see that he has talent and speed, it was a completely new and very difficult racetrack for him to learn. He did well, he has been limited somewhat by the fact he’s still not 100 percent fit and we’re hoping that another 10 days at home will give him a chance to recover ahead of the Most round. It’ll be a new circuit for almost everybody, so this should make for a more level playing field.”

“The Assen WorldSSP race could be an important event for the championship,” Dosoli said. “It was Aegerter’s fifth win in a row now, and the mistake from Odendaal means it’s very important for his title aspirations. I was so impressed with the way Aegerter managed the race, his pace was incredible during the last laps, which showed he was completely in control. Congratulation to him and Ten Kate Yamaha for this. Sorry for Odendaal’s mistake in Race 2, but I’m sure he will have more opportunities in front of him to try and recover the gap to Aegerter in the championship.

“Also, I would like to congratulate Randy Krummenacher – it’s nice to see the 2019 world champion back on the podium with Yamaha at his team’s home race. It was also a good performance shown by our young riders, like Gonzalez, who has unfortunately been held back by his arm pump issues, but he was there once again. Very nice to see how Luca Bernardi was able to recover from a disappointing first race and get into the mix in the second. They might not be his best results, but it shows that he’s able to make good progress to be back at the front end.”

“When we consider the result, it’s disappointing for our WorldSSP300 riders,” Dosoli said. “Bahattin and Unai were able to fight for the podium and it’s a shame that there was an unlucky race incident that took them both out of the points. We know that both are capable of fighting for the podium and I’m sure they will be back at the front in the coming races.”

“It’s good that we could again enjoy some fantastic Yamaha R3 bLU cRU European Cup races, with a high standard and good pace,” Dosoli said. “Big congratulations to the two race winners, they were able to show good pace and well done to Iker Garcia Abella for increasing his championship lead. The R3 Cup has been a very successful racing program, it’s great to see these kids learning a new racetrack so quickly, especially considering how difficult it is. Unfortunately, a number of riders were involved in an incident in Race 2 and Giacomo Mora was injured. We wish him a speedy recovery and we hope he will be back soon and will rejoin the group at a future event this year.”

Next up for the WorldSBK championship is the new Czech Republic round at Autodrom Most, which will once again be supported by WorldSSP, WorldSSP300 and the Yamaha R3 bLU cRU European Cup.