GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team’s Garrett Gerloff recovered to finish seventh in the first FIM Superbike World Championship race at Donington Park, having fallen while running inside the podium positions in tricky conditions.
With Kohta Nozane unfortunately sidelined for the remainder of the weekend, today the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team concentrated all their efforts on American rider Gerloff. The Texan started the day off with the fifth fastest time in the wet Free Practice 3 session (1’43.971), then backed it up with another fifth position in the Tissot Superpole (1’41.393).
Race 1, though, proved to be an adventure: after losing some positions in the first lap battle, Gerloff managed to work his way back to third, before falling at the tricky, negative-banked final corner. He did not lose his cool though, rejoining the race and recovering again to finish in seventh place. The impressive pace he showed during the race will allow him to be in the fight for the podium tomorrow.
With today’s race in the books, Gerloff maintains sixth in the championship standings with 68 points, and will have two more chances to add to his tally in the Tissot Superpole Race at 11:00 and Race 2 at 14:00 (GMT+1).
Garrett Gerloff: P7
GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team
“I want to give my team some good results because they deserve it, and I really wanted to be on the podium today, so it was disappointing to make my way through the field all the way to the top-three just to throw it away. I am happy with how the bike is, the Yamaha R1 works really well around here as Toprak (Razgatlioglu) demonstrated, but I am frustrated with how the day ended. The mixed conditions made things tricky during the race, especially in the first sector, which took a long time to dry out. It became a bit easier when the track finally dried, so I am happy to have stayed on two wheels at least until then. I know that we are fast, tomorrow I want to minimize my mistakes and get to the front. I managed to get acquainted quite quickly with this track; doing my homework before the weekend definitely helped, and learning new circuits is something that I have done a lot of in the last few weeks too, so I guess I was just in the right mindset for it.”
