Andrea Iannone (Team GoEleven) completed a remarkable recovery in Sunday’s Race 2 at the Autodrom Most to claim a top-ten finish in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. After starting from the third row, the #29 had to take to the Turn 1 escape road which dropped him down to 18th at the end of Lap 1 before he battled his way back up the field to claim a strong eighth place finish during the Czech Round, with Iannone declaring he had the pace for a rostrum when looking back on his comeback.
Iannone headed into Sunday’s two races full of confidence after a Race 1 podium when he finished third, and he backed that up with seventh in the Tissot Superpole Race, handing him his starting position for Race 2. The Italian looked to climb up the order when the lights went out but found himself on the Turn 1 escape road after taking avoiding action following the coming together between Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) at the opening corner.
This dropped Iannone to 18th at the end of the opening lap, but he soon started making progress through the field. By the end of Lap 7, the MotoGP™ race winner had climbed to 12th, and he was 11th when the 22-lap race hit the halfway mark. Progress slowed for Iannone, but he was still able to climb into the top ten a lap later when he got ahead of Axel Bassani (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) before getting ahead of Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) on Lap 18 for P9, where he would cross the line. However, a three-second penalty for Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) in lieu of a Long Lap Penalty for shortcutting Turn 1 promoted ‘The Maniac’ into P8.
Discussing his impressive fightback through the field, Iannone said: “I’m the king of recoveries! At Donington, I started all three races in 19th place because I had yellow flags during Superpole. On Sunday morning, I had a problem with the clutch. I started really badly. In Race 2, at the first corner, there was a big crash, and I was in the middle. I went straight on and lost everything. I recovered a lot. I’m happy for the results from the weekend but it was possible to achieve much more because we had the pace for the podium today. Now, we’re halfway through the season, we’ll try to improve a little bit for Portimao, make a step race by race. Without the incident, we would’ve fought for the top three.”
Most marked the halfway point of the season, with Iannone on hand to give a brief overview of the first half of his maiden WorldSBK campaign. He’s scored three podiums in 18 races and sits sixth in the Championship standings, 30 points behind Andrea Locatelli (Pata Prometeon Yamaha) in fifth and three points clear of Remy Gardner (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) in seventh.
Reviewing his season so far, Iannone stated: “Sometimes I’m a little bit surprised, because the races are like Saturday. After a long time, it’s not easy. Everybody here wants to win. In the end, we’re a small team, we always do our best. I’m quite happy. It’s possible to improve in many areas. This is our target. We try to improve for the second part of the season. Portimao is a good track. I did a test because I’d never ridden there. It’s not easy.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com