The third and final day of the first round of the Superbike World Championship concluded today at the Phillip Island circuit in Australia.
After free practice on Friday, yesterday the two riders of the Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team, Tito Rabat and Bahattin Sofugolu, had contested the Superpole in which they obtained twentieth and eighteenth places respectively. The first race of the season had seen the young Turk, making his absolute debut in the category, cross the finish line in fifteenth place, thus gaining his first world championship point, while the Spaniard was unfortunately forced to retire due to a technical problem.
Today's program included the Superpole Race and Race 2.
In the sprint race, run over a distance of ten laps, Rabat finished in sixteenth position, just ahead of his teammate Sofuoglu.
Race 2 got underway in the afternoon over a distance of 20 laps and, as had already happened yesterday, there was a mandatory tire change between laps 9 and 11. The two Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team riders finished just outside the points zone and this time it was Sofuoglu, sixteenth, who preceded Rabat.
The next round of WorldSBK will take place at the Autodromo do Algarve in Portimao, Portugal, from March 28 to 30.
"The results obtained in this first round of the season have confirmed that we have the potential to grow. There is still a lot of work to do to be constantly in the points zone, but the commitment of our technicians and our riders allows us to look to the future with optimism".
"Today was an important day in which, beyond the results obtained, we worked hard to find new solutions, which allowed us to better understand our bike and adapt it to my riding style. We understood which are our weak points and which are in our favor. I rode many laps with Bahattin and we had a lot of fun. I'm sorry for the penalty, but I'm very happy with how the team worked and the improvements we made".
"Today we tried different solutions both for the electrical part and for the set-up of our bike and in Race 2 I felt more comfortable riding. I am happy with the steps forward we have made here at Phillip Island. The team worked very well and we were the fastest in the tyre changes. I would therefore like to thank all our technicians for their important contribution in this, my debut weekend in Superbike, and I am sure that we will do even better in the next rounds”.
