Having won a race in his comeback season in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, there was a special gift for Andrea Iannone this past weekend as he replaced Fabio Di Giannantonio at the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team, with the Italian missing the final two rounds of the year for shoulder surgery. Iannone, having been away from MotoGP™ since a sporting ban came into place at the end of 2019, managed to stay upright across the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend at Sepang and showed plenty of competitivity during the practice and qualifying sessions but then, over race distance, struggled – something he spoke about when asked of his physical condition.
“I feel tired! My physical condition is really bad right now in this moment; during these three days, I gave 100%, all of me! Now, it’s really difficult to understand everything but in any case, I enjoyed everything this weekend. The race was difficult but I finished the race and we did that, so it was important to achieve this result.”
In terms of pace, the #29 was 17th on the grid and just over 1.8s off Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia’s stunning lap record pole time of a 1’56.337s. Iannone’s own time of a 1’58.183 saw him qualify ahead of the Hondas of Takaaki Nakagami, Luca Marini and Joan Mir, as well as GASGAS’ Augusto Fernandez and Trackhouse Aprilia’s replacement rider of Lorenzo Savadori. The time would have been good enough for the fifth row in 2023 and a front row in 2022, whilst likewise being more than a second quicker than his previous faster ever lap at Sepang.
We didn’t make any mistakes during the weekend and sometimes, we showed good potential and this is the most important. Ducati and the team will decide for the last race; I’m happy to ride and race this bike but I’m also happy to watch from home! I want to try the bike one more time to understand in which areas I’ve improved but it’s fantastic, it’s magic and for this, it’s a big present from the team and Ducati.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com