Nurburgring. WSSP. Race
World Supersport Championship
Round 11
Nurburgring 7-9 September 2012
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 9.TH
Maintain solid fifth position in the closing part of the championship - that was the target for Yakhnich Motorsport Team at the beginning of the season and that’s what is happening race after race. Vladimir Leonov finished fifth in the hard Nurburgring race, confirming to himself and to the team that the top is not so far...
Now we ride constantly 0,5-0,6 seconds from the top three riders, in every circuit, even here, where before Friday we had no data to set up the bike before the race.
The race of Vladimir was perfect. He started in fifth position, but after three corners Gabor Talmacsi, overtook him, forcing Vladimir to enter wide into a corner and that cost two positions to our rider in favor to Foret and Quarmby. Eight at the end of the first lap, Vladimir stayed calm and for four laps followed Talmacsi and Quarmby, while the first five riders took three-four second of advantages. Then Vladimir, at the fifth laps overtook both of them, and started to see Parkes, the last rider of the leading group, not so far... four seconds, no more. The potential to catch them was real, and Vladimir decided to push hard. Doing so he made a couple of mistakes in braking at the first corner, and this cost over 2-3 seconds of disadvantages. So, while Foret crashed again, Vladimir Decided to defeat his position from the attack of Talmacsi first, and Baldolini in the end of the race. Two laps to the checker flag Baldolini overtook him, but Vladimir pushed again hard, and with one last lap in 2’01” took again the final fifth position.
Fifth on a circuit never seen before by the rider and by the team. It would not be a lie to say that technically speaking this result has the same value as the Moscow podium, the circuit where rider and the team were in the same starting position during the first practice day.
But after the happiness of the race, the cold shower of the technical controls: due to a mistake in fuel consumptions, our bike finished all the fuel after the checkered flag, and so we didn't had the usual two liters in advance at the weight control. So the weight was 160,2 i.e. 0,8 kg (1 liter of fuel) under the lower limit of 161 kg, therefore the officials disqualified our bike from the official statement... (((
VLADIMIR LEONOV
“Not bad for a final result. I had a very good start, but then the Talmacsi overtook me forcing me to do a mistake and so I lost the contact with the leading group. The race was hard, we had sliding problems in the rear, especially at the end of the race, and really I hate the first corner... I had many problems in braking there, when I was looking to attack Parkes, so I decided to finish without taking more risk, to obtain important points for the team.”
