The Evan Bros. WorldSSP Yamaha Team will have a new line-up on the FIM Supersport World Championship grid from the Acerbis Czech Round onwards, as Lorenzo Dalla Porta steps in for Andrea Mantovani. The team mutually agreed to part ways with the MotoE™ race winner after the Prometeon Italian Round, where Mantovani did not race due to injuries sustained at Donington, with 2019 Moto3™ Champion Lorenzo Dalla Porta stepping in.
The Italian joined Evan Bros. Yamaha for the 2023 season after making two wildcard appearances in WorldSBK in 2021, while he also raced in STK1000 between 2016 and 2018; finishing in the top ten of the standings in his rookie campaign. However, strong results this year have been hard to come by for a team that have been so used to fighting at the front in recent years. Mantovani’s best was 12th in Race 2 at the TT Circuit Assen while he missed the UK and Italian Rounds through injury he sustained on Friday at Donington Park.
The squad have been used to fighting for titles in recent seasons. In 2019, the won the Championship with Randy Krummenacher while teammate Federico Caricasulo was second. A year later, Andrea Locatelli dominated the season to claim the World Championship while, in 2021 and 2022, the team finished runners-up to Dominique Aegerter with riders Steven Odendaal and Lorenzo Baldassarri.
In a post on Instagram, Mantovani said: “I announce with great regret that, by mutual agreement with the Evan Bros. WorldSSP Yamaha Team, it has been decided to interrupt the collaboration. Thank you all for the work done together and I wish the team all the best for the rest of the season!”
From the Autodrom Most onwards, Lorenzo Dalla Porta will join the team as he steps across from a disrupted Moto2™ campaign. After making his Moto3™ debut in 2015, he claimed the World Championship title in 2019 before he moved up to Moto2™; scoring five points in his rookie campaign. He doubled that a year later as he remained with the Italtrans Racing Team outfit until the end of the 2022 season. This year, he has raced five times for the Pertamina Mandalika SAG Team and twice for the Forward Team, and now he will start a WorldSSP campaign more than halfway through the season.
Discussing his arrival to WorldSSP, 26-year-old Dalla Porta said: “I am really happy to have this opportunity with the Evan Bros. WorldSSP Yamaha Team, certainly one of the best teams in the category. I want to give my best, to obtain the results that the team and I deserve. The project is good and ambitious, so we just have to start and work hard, to improve quickly and have fun. I thank the team for the opportunity, I am really motivated.”
Team Principal Fabio Evangelista said: “I am obviously very sorry that I was not able, together with my team, to bring Andrea Mantovani to the top positions. Together we decided that stopping was the best decision. I wish Andrea all the best for the continuation of his career. I am very happy to welcome Lorenzo to our team. The first mission is to help him adapt to the category and to the tyres, and then to start improving step by step, aiming for great results. The team is ready to work hard, as it has always done, to experience a second half of the season as protagonists.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com