With the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship on a summer break, team managers from up and down the grid have been reviewing their season. Paul Denning, Team Principal at the Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK team, spoke about the first eight rounds of the campaign after the Acerbis Czech Round. He also reviewed the Championship fight between Toprak Razgatlioglu and Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and whether there could be new parts on the R1 machine at the next round.
“THE GAP TO THE LEADER SHOULD BE MUCH CLOSER THAN IT IS” – 2023 so far
Razgatlioglu sits second in the Riders’ Championship with five wins to his name, whilst Andrea Locatelli is two places behind. Between them, they have given Yamaha 28 podiums with the majority, 22, coming from the #54. Currently, the 2021 Champion trails Bautista by 74 points after closing the gap by 95 to 49 after the Most Tissot Superpole Race. However, a Race 2 crash from the lead due to an unfortunate rear tyre failure allowed Bautista to re-extend his lead back up to 74 points.
Reflecting on the season so far, Denning said: “We have to say ‘good’ really. We’re in second and fourth positions in the Championship. The gap to the leader should be much closer than it is. The events of Most Race 2, where Toprak suffered a tyre failure, were ridiculously unlucky when it looked like we were going to win the race, means the gap is much bigger than we’d like. This we can’t control. In general, the performance of the team and the riders has been great. Just the outright performance gap, let’s say, with the machine leading the Championship is perhaps a little bit too much. We were getting very close!”
“THERE IS HOPE!” – the title fight is still alive
Whilst the gap between Razgatlioglu and Bautista increased at Most, Denning refused to rule the Turk out of the title fight with four rounds, 12 races and 248 points on the market across Magny-Cours, Aragon, Portimao and Jerez. With Razgatlioglu leading in Race 2 before his tyre failure, the gap could have been 44 points heading into the summer break or, if Bautista had won ahead of Toprak, 54, but the gap got back up to 74 points, more than a round in hand.
Talking about the ‘never say never’ attitude, Denning commented that he thought the title was still a possibility: “I think very much so and Most has shown that, both positive and negative. We won the Superpole Race and looked like we could’ve, but honestly, would’ve won Race 2. That means there is hope. Any rider can make mistakes. We got super unlucky in Race 2. I guess, there is a negative to say, it’s probably only that Toprak has suffered two DNFs. One because another rider crashed and took him down at Phillip Island and one at Most. It’s a real pity when that’s the case. When we come back to Magny-Cours, we’ll be positive and smiling and just do our best as always.”
“WE NEED TO TAKE THAT FINAL STEP” – Locatelli edging closer all the time
The Yamaha #55 is enjoying his best season to date in WorldSBK in terms of podiums and points. He has six podiums to his name this season – the same as he managed in 2021 and 2022 combined – while he has 227 points after eight rounds. He had 186 after Round 8 in 2021 (Magny-Cours) while he was on 173 at this stage last year when Barcelona hosted the eighth round. However, the Italian is still chasing a first WorldSBK win.
Expanding on Locatelli’s campaign, and what he needs to do next, Denning said: “It’s been a little bit up and down. We need to reach the level of performance of Phillip Island, Mandalika and Imola and do that more consistently. Donington was very positive, it’s a track he’s struggled at in the past. In general, the level is growing and growing. Imola is a tough track, and he hadn’t ridden there for 10 years. He performed super well. If he can do that at Imola, for me, he can do it anywhere. We just need to build his confidence so he’s ready to go so that he feels that he deserves to be on the podium and then the next step is to try to win a race. We’ve seen with many riders, when they finally break through that barrier and they’re able to win, the self-belief goes up. He doesn’t make many mistakes, he’s very consistent, we just need to take that final step for him to believe he’s a winning rider.”
“WE HOPE TO BRING NEW MATERIAL TO MAGNY-COURS” – no Aragon test for Yamaha
Although Yamaha have opted not to go to Aragon for the upcoming two-day test at the end of August, they have a development programme in place as they look to close the gap on their rivals. Test rider Niccolo Canepa is part of this, and Denning revealed he will be testing some new material for the YZF-R1 with the aim of bringing them to the French Round.
Denning said: “We only have one remaining test day for each rider. The end of August at Aragon is like hell on earth. I’m not quite sure what we can learn with one day there. We prefer to put the team’s time and the development guys’ time into the development of the bike. They will be doing some more testing with Nico Canepa and some new stuff, and we hope to bring some new material to Magny-Cours off the back of that which can slightly improve the performance.”
Watch all the action from WorldSBK in 2023 with the WorldSBK VideoPass!
Source: WorldSBK.com