The seventh Superbike World Championship round continued today at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari di Imola, the day’s action taking place in hot and sunny conditions.
In yesterday’s practices, Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team rider Bradley Ray completed the two practice sessions a strong eleventh, despite this being his first visit to the challenging Italian track. This morning the English rider refined the setup of his Yamaha during the final practice session before returning to the track for Superpole, which establishes the grid for the first two races. With a fantastic time of 1’46”595, Ray placed sixth, which meant a second row start on the grid for the afternoon’s 19-lap race. A very fast start allowed him to move immediately up into the leading group. Unfortunately though, from the mid-race point, the Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team rider began to lose ground due to a dramatic drop in front tyre performance. He eventually crossed the line fifteenth, just finishing inside the points.
Tomorrow Ray will take part in the Superpole race followed in the afternoon by Race 2.
"In the end, we achieved a surprising sixth place in Superpole, which repays all the hard work we’ve been putting in recently. It was a pity that we suffered such a drop in front tyre performance in the race though, as this saw us slip back to fifteenth place.”
“I’m a little disappointed with the actual race result, both for myself and the team. I tried very hard in the beginning to stay inside the top ten and was pushing hard but almost crashed twice because I didn’t have good feeling with the front tyre. And then there was a drop in the tyre that was bigger than I expected! Hopefully tomorrow we can be faster and run the kind of race that the team deserves.”
