ALMERIA, VALENCIA, ARAGON

Claudio Corsetti: After two months of intensive work and seven circuits visited in Spain, it’s time to summarize the results of  “Yakhnich Motosport” season beginning. In January all the team spent most of time just trying to know each other better,  throwing away the winter rutin, and fitting the best setting for every rider, as all of them were using new tyres on their bikes.

In the second part of the training, started in Febraury, the work became more focused on refining the bike settings and the racers’ performance in order to reach the most optimal cooperation between the bike and its rider. That kind of work started in Vladimir Leonov’s box , as he was the first who had received the new bike for 2011-season and the results were astonishing. In two of the circuits, we visited, there were clear reference points because those circuits had been used in 2010 for the World Superstock Championship. Well, in both of them, Leonov clocked a better laptime than the winner of the race in 2010. In Portimao, just two days later, he was able to stop the chrono at 1’48”2, half a second faster than the best lap of 2010 World Superstock Race. 
In Valencia he did even better, setting just within two days the new absolute record of the circuit for that category. Yes, the actual record  is 1’39”4 set up in 2009, and the 2010 pole position of the World Superstock Race was 1’39”6. Leonov set easily the incredible time of 1’38”993... , surprising even great Randy Mamola, who had come to work with “Yakhnich Motorsport”for a couple of days. I am sure, that result could have been improved if it hadn’t been for the strong wind on the last training day. Even in Motorland Aragon, the last training session of that month, the team “Yakhnich Motorsport”continued to improve the contact beetween the rider and the bike, but again the strong wind did not allow to finish the program. In any case, even here very good laptime of 1’59”3 was easily reached.

All the rest members of the team improved their performance too. Sergey Vlasov started to use the R6 as technical specimen for the Yamaha Trophy. That bike is slightly slower than the stock specimen, but anyway he managed to improve his results in every circuit visited in the second part of the trainings. Day by day Sergey improved his riding: perfected riding style, worked out his riding stategy, got used to new tyre and learned to use it. And we can be sure that he will  surprise us in the most difficult and existing Trophy as Yamaha R Series Cup...

Nadia Yakhnich and Natasha Lyubimova within this second session solved the initial problems of adapting their riding to the new tyres (last year they used Dunlop, now they are riding with Metzeler), and this part of the training was focused on reaching consistency in performance.Instead of single laptime, the work with the girls was focused on long run sessions, and from this point of view, we can say that they are already much more consistant than last season.

Maxim Kiselev, continued to work with his BMW. Many new parts were adopted on his bike at the latest session, and his basic setting work, naturally, is going on with a little more difficulties than work of all other riders with Yamaha R6, as this bike is completely new for the pilot himself and the team mechanics. Anyway, Maxim proved in every circuit to be one of the fastest riders overall, he was always on the top, even if he could not do long runs perfectly. Now the pilot is riding "over" the setting problems,obtaining the same impressive laptimes... that's why all the team members are sure that when Maxim finalizes the basic set of the bike he will be for sure a season protagonist in all the races!

Now the team’s work is concentrated on finishing  preparation of all the bikes for the next appointment, made for 18-19 and 20 March in Misano (Italy) for the official CIV Presentation and test session.

Vladimir Leonov: “The main goals of this test session were to refine the bike settings, test the new suspension and try to accelerate. I am very satisfied with the results! We established cooperation with the mechanics. I have very positive impression of the team: it is forming in the right way. As for my riding, I was able to clock good time in spite of the bad weather. It was very useful experience, because very often the weather is very windy during the race.”

Sergey Vlasov: “During last training session we managed to work very efficiently with the Italian part of the team. We have some little achievements in our work which make us feel happy and ready for the next season. Of course, our meeting with Randy Mamola was one of the greatest moments. He gave very useful advice to the whole team: the main idea – you must think more, be concentrated. Randy turned out to be very sociable and easy-going, he isn’t a star but a real devotee! On the one hand he said very simple things, didn’t advise anything principally new, but the power coming from this unique person inspires to feat!”

Nadia Yakhnich: “I cannot say that my test session in Spain was very successful. Unfortunately, the strong wind that followed us everywhere, in each circuit, prevented us from having fully useful training time and it was just impossible to show great results under such conditions. But on the other hand our team work is getting more and more productive and we understand each other much better. This fact makes me happy.”

Natasha Lyubimova: “I would like to thank all my team-mates for their work, for the positive atmosphere which we had in our boxes for two months. I am grateful to my mechanic Roberto for his faith even when I didn’t do well and to Andrew Taube for his understanding and support he gave to every member of our team. I am looking forward to meeting Italian tracks.”

Maxim Kiselev: “I liked the last sessions. We began achieving harmony in our work with the Italians, adapting to each other and developing our joint work successfully. 
We haven’t reached such mutual understanding with my bike yet, but it is only a matter of time. The bike is new for us and we are trying to find the right approach to it. But on the whole, if it hadn’t been for the strong wind in  Aragon everything would have been super!!