Superbike, Locatelli, what a bad luck: “Motorcycle in neutral, I don't know why”

Double knockout for the official Yamaha team

Bitter Sunday for the Pata Prometeon Yamaha team, even if the victory was even up for grabs up until a few kilometers from the checkered flag. Still credit to Andrea Locatelliauthor of a superlative weekend which unfortunately ended with a fall at the Miller hairpin.

The pilot from Bergamo explained what happened: “The feeling was fantastic in Race 2, I think that in the end this weekend we did an excellent job and never made any mistakes. Unfortunately, we are checking the data and do not yet know what the cause was, but the motorbike was in neutral, so I was wide and when I tried to put the gear back in, I made a mistake and lost the rear. It's a real shame because everything was working well and it was the last lap and we were fighting for the race win. I want to thank Yamaha and the team because we worked well during the weekend, we were fast in every condition and in every session, so this is definitely something good for us and let's see what we can do in the next race. We will be on track for two days of testing before the Barcelona round, we need to improve a little more, but the confidence in my R1 is good, so let's see what we can do.”

Locatelli made the situation less bitter for Yamaha, which recorded a zero-point start to the championship for Jonathan Rea. The team manager Paul Denning he commented like this on Sunday at Phillip Island: “Disappointing finish for Andrea after a simply stellar performance over the weekend. After the restart he didn't have the same feeling with the bike as he had previously, but when the bike adapted to him, he demonstrated his potential once again, climbing up to third position and had every chance of winning the race , given the way he passed the other drivers. The crash while trying to pass Alex at Turn 4 was really unfortunate and we have to congratulate him and his entire garage side. Rea fought both in the Superpole Race and in Race-2, he was making a comeback and had climbed from eleventh to fifth position. We are relieved that he is well after the fall, we will start again from the Barcelona tests.”