Words and images courtesy Yamaha Motor Europe

FIM Superbike World Championship action continued this past weekend in Aragon, with Aldi Satya Mahendra extending his championship lead in the Supersport 300 championship after narrowly missing out on Race 2 victory by just 0.006 seconds. In the Yamaha R3 World Cup, we crowned a new champion in young Spanish talent Marc Vich. There was also success in Supersport, with Stefano Manzi and Valentin Debise taking podium finishes at the Spanish venue. In Superbike, Jonathan Rea returned from injury sustained at Magny Cours and Andrea Locatelli led the Yamaha charge on what turned out to be a challenging weekend. Yamaha Motor Europe’s Road Racing and Research and Development Manager, Andrea Dosoli explains it all in in this week’s Dosoli Debrief.

Dosoli said: “We were pleased and happy to see Jonathan back on track this weekend, his injury has been healing quite well so while it has been tough on him, he has managed the situation well.

“For sure we expected better results in WorldSBK this weekend, the reality is the results were lower than the potential expressed, mainly by Andrea Locatelli. WorldSBK is very competitive at the minute, as shown by Superpole with 13 riders within one second of each other, on one of the longest tracks on the calendar. When it is like this, you cannot afford to not be getting 100% out of your package.

“We did not fully exploit the potential of the bike this weekend. It is a matter of fact that we are clearly losing in one sector, but we also did not seem to be recovering the time lost in the sectors where the bike is strong, which we were able to do last year. We need to work with what is in our hands, we need to try to improve the package, especially in the areas where the R1 is known for being strong. There is work to be done to get 100% out of the current package, especially considering the current level of the class. We need to keep our heads down and work hard to improve the package overall.

“In Race 1, without the mistake at the beginning of the race, Locatelli would have finished within five/six seconds of the lead which would have been a good result for us considering the level of the competition in WorldSBK. In Race 2, he started from the fourth row, which made things even more challenging.

“We need to improve our Qualifying performance, as even though the times were close at Aragon – a couple of tenths would have put Locatelli on the front row – we need to be quicker to improve the starting position. If we don’t have a good spot on the grid, the races are even more difficult and this was very much the case for Jonathan and Remy Gardner this weekend.

“It was nice to see the R6 competitive in the Supersport category again with two Yamahas on the podium in Race 1 and we came very close to two bikes on the podium in Race 2, so congratulations to Stefano Manzi and Valentin Debise.

“Stefano was able to recover from the third row of the grid which is never an easy task. He confirmed his consistency and that he is a real fighter. He has slightly closed the gap to the leader, and is very close to second in the championship so we need to keep working in this way as there are still four races remaining and anything can happen.

“It was another positive weekend in WorldSSP300 with Aldi Satya Mahendra extending his championship lead. He narrowly missed out on the podium on Saturday, but recovered well on Sunday. This came in spite of the scary start, which saw Aldi’s brother, Galang Hendra Pratama involved in a big crash – fortunately, he is OK and we wish him well in his recovery. Aldi kept his focus, and fought for the win shortly afterwards, only missing out by 0.006 seconds, extending his championship lead to 16 points with just two races left at Jerez.

“Congratulations to the young Spanish winner of the R3 bLU cRU World Cup, Marc Vich. He has been running very well all season and I would like to wish him a successful next step in his career. It was a close fought championship with the title fight going down to the last lap, so congratulations also have to go to Gonzalo Sanchez, who very much impressed in his rookie year to come within three points of winning the title.”