SATURDAY-SUNDAY AUGUST 25-26.TH

World Supersport Championship

Round 10

Moscow 24-26 Agoust 2012

SATURDAY-SUNDAY AGOUST  25-26.TH

We said Friday the home soil  would  be comfortable for the whole Yakhnich Team, and it really was! Leonov’s Saturday second qualifying could appear not as good on a superficial analysis as he had lost two positions on the grid, from 5th to 7th. Having analyzed  the data deeply, it was clear his potential was for the fourth position, and,   what’s  more important, the race rhythm he had shown  was better than Friday, only half a second from the poleman, Cluzel.

On Sunday warm up, done in wet conditions, again Vova demonstrated the perfect settings of his Yakhnich R6 bike, and naturally his own talent, being able to fight for the best laptime with Lowes during all session.

So, for the race, wet or dry, we was sure to be able to fight  for the first 4-5 positions.

Vova’s  start was perfect, fifth at the second corner, he battled  initially with Foret and Parkes. Having overtaken Parkes, and Lowes in the third lap, he established the Yakhnich Motorsport in the third place, and when Lowes had to do the ride through because of the jump start, the russian rider comforted himself in the third place with a gap big enough to finish on the podium.  Ahead of him were Sofouglu and Cluzel going away with the rhythm of  1’38”5, while he was doing about 1’39”. Behind Leonov  on the track neither Parkers, nor Morais, managed to do better than the russian. Parkes tried to push hard in the middle of the race, than destroyed his front tyre and made it impossible for himself  to ever reach the Yakhnich rider. Then Morais tried the same, ending up with the same result: he left Vladimir flight to the podium in the first russian round of World Superbike Championship, making happy  thousands of russian spectators that lived all together this historical moment for the championship, for the country, for the team, for the rider.

Podium WSSP in Assen we earned the first overall podium of a russian team and of a russian rider. Here we made History!!!!

VLADIMIR LEONOV

“I can’t believe it. Being on the podium in Moscow! If I would have ever  dreamed of a perfect week-end in this first russian world Superbike race, I would have not dare to dream of something so wonderful. I still cant’t believe it, and I suppose we need several days to completely realize what we have done. I want to  thank  a lot   the whole  Yakhnich Team and all our fans, all russian motorsport fans, who have been here today  to live this historical moment with us! ”