Race. WSSP. Imola

Supersport world championship

Round 2

Imola 30 march, 1 april

“It’s a long way to the top (If you wanna rock’n roll)”... the title of the famous AC/DC group song is a perfect picture for the Yakhnich Motorsport Team. Yes, it’s a long way to the top, but, the good news is the the way finally begame, finally we did some steps, finally we are “in”.

It was not a lucky week-end in Australia, if you remember, with the Leonov crash at the first lap of the race, but, you should even remember that his lap times during practice and during warm-up even in the first race was showing the potential to be in the first 10 riders of the world championship.

Imola the same: not really lucky qualifying, with the 13.th position on the grid, but again, the confirmation, looking to the all week-end laptimes, that the Yakhnich R6 could for sure be inserted in the first 10 position of the classification.

So, all team was confident at the start of second round that, as Leonov could manage a good start, the final position would have been good... 

Vladimir start was not good, and at the first lap he was even concentrated don’t to repeat the same mistake od Phillip Island. Imola is really dangerous in some point of braking, we had lot of accidents during week-end in the first two-three chicanes, and vladimir was relaly carefully to avoid it in the first two laps, going back to the 17.th position...

But, as the group started to be long, his ritmh immediatly increased.

“stay calm, take your rithm, go there and have fun, and, first of all, believe in yourself”. That was the senteces with wich, Claudio Corsetti and Randy Mamola spoke with him just some minutes before the race, and that’s what he did.

Vladimir demonstrated a really good mood, relaxing himself in the beginning and then starting to attach. The key moment of his race was at the end of the fifth lap, the group of 4 riders ahed of him was fighting in the last chicane, and someone made a mistake, all the others had to slow down, and Vladimir choosing a perfect line was able to overtook a couple of them inside the chicane and the others in the exit, passing from 14.th to 9.th position.

It would have been enough for today, but as he had free space ahead of him, he increased again the rithm, signing for some laps 1’53”0, while the group ahead was riding in 1’53”5- 1’54”0. So was easy to reach other riders and overtook them, while in the leading group Sofouglu was disqualified (black flag) for jumping the first chicane. Step by step Vladimir arrived at the 7.th position, and, as Morais crashed (first chicane, again...) at the 14.th lap, we finally obtained the wonderful 6.th position that Vladimir conduct at the checkered flag!

It is a wonderful result if you consider that Yakhnich Team is at the fourth  WSS race of  his history (two wild cards in 2011 and second race of 2012 season) and that this is the best result ever scored by Vladimir Leonov in any world championship, and even the best result ever signed by a russian rider and team in a world championship road race.

Last lap was very difficoult, because of the fuel consumption. Imola, together Monza, is the most difficoult circuit for the engines and for consumption. The Yakhnich R6 electronic management had to slow down the power fo the bike in the last laps to allow Vladimir to finish the race, and infact, just half lap after the end the bike stopped.

So Vladimir could not see immediatly the happy faces of the team waiting him at the techical box, but for sure he could image it.

Now Vladimir is in the 11.th position in the championship standings, and Yakhnich team is in the 8.th position in the team standings.

Not bad, relly not bad!

Tomorrow the team will stay in Imola for the Pirelli official tyres test, and next week all team will partecipate in the the Italian Championship, again in Imola.