Round 4, race, Monza

World Supersport Championship

round 4

Monza 4-6 May 2012

Sunday 6 may 

Racing is racing. One day you are on the podium, the other one you must give applause to the others. One day the good luck kiss you, another day choose another.

For sure in Monza didn’t kissed Yakhnich team and Vladimir Leonov. From the problems in the first free practice, till the wet second qualifying, that did not allowed Vladimir to obtain a better starting position then 15.th place then he could expects. 

The race was on wet, yes, and Vladimir is fast on wet, yes.

But starting from the fourth row, you have to overtake lot of slower riders to go ahead...

Vladimir had a good start, he was already in the first 10 position at the end of the first lap, then 8.th at the second, then 7.th.. his rhythm was already good for a podium, again, but on his way a lot of “traps”: first of all Cruciani, with his fast Kawasaki on the straight, sowed many times Vladimir in to the corners... then the Quarmby crash, just in front of Vladimir, obliged our rider to slow down and loose again some positions, till the 9.th. Pushing to recover position Vladimir did a mistake in Roggia “esse”, and even there loose some positions, till the 12.th.   

It was still the beginning of the race, yes, but all this unlucky happenings can create nervous situation to the rider. From 12.th position Vladimir started a new race. Faster and faster, between the third and the fourth lap he overtook one, two, three riders, another crashed in front... at the end of fourth lap he was 7.th, and in the fifth he signed the best lap of the race up to that moment, 2’03”7, one second faster respect the leaders of the race. In the beginning of the 6.th lap he overtook even Baldolini,  conquering the 6.th position. Arriving at the Roggia braking point he was already back of  the 5.th and again faster then the leaders. But today it was not our day... an harder braking than usual in Roggia create an instability in the rear of the bike and Vladimir had an high side just in the middle of the corner.

Our race today finished there.

But now we are sure. Vladimir Leonov and Yakhnich Motorsport team will be always protagonists of the fight for the first 5-8 position from now till the end of the season. Would you have believed it before the championship start? 

 See you in one week for the Donington 5.th stage.

VLADIMIR LEONOV

“I’m so sorry... I was really in the condition to go again on the podium, or very close to that. Unfortunately I loose time back of slower riders and so in the beginning of the race I could not be as fast as it was possible. I tried to stay “out of the problems”, but probably today was impossible. Already in that point of the crash I had lot of rear sliding the laps before, and in 6.th lap it was too much, and as the tyre recovered the grip in the middle of the corner, the reaction of the bike lauched me on the air. I’m so sorry for all our fan, even here in Monza I saw lot of russian fan on the standing, it was so emotional to see russian fan and russian flag from the grid, and I really wanted a good results to dedicate to all of them... Sorry, we will try to do it from next races!”.