Historical pole position for team YAKHNICH MOTORSPORT

SUPERSPORT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

PHILLIP ISLAND - Australia

1 Round,  22-24 February, Saturday 

 

For the first time in the history today Russian team won the pole position in the most competitive world championship of motorcycle racing - World Supersport! 

After the debut podium which Vladimir Leonov had got for Yakhnich Motorsport in Assen, Russian team won the qualification on the most technically complicated circuit in the world – Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.

There was no doubt that Russian team would win the pole position as Sam Lowes occupied the first position on Yamaha R6 from the beginning of the official tests. The current champion Kenan Sofuoglu and his teammate Fabian Foret tried to reduce the lag during the whole week, but Sam always increased the lead.  Having a few successful simulations made it perfectly clear that he could get 1:33 during the whole passage. The huge reserve of the motion Yamaha R6 made it possible for Sam to get fast laps in different sessions. He reached 1:32.545 – the new absolute record of Phillip Island for Supersport.

Yakhnich Motorsport Team works in comfortable conditions, they have enough time for rest and for elaboration of computed solutions.

It is also true for Vladimir Leonov who crashed yesterday because of the oil spill. His mechanic and engineers should assemble the new bike in one day. Leonov decided to skip first qualification and started to bring setting on Saturday.

On FP3 Vladimir got a progress and entered TOP-4. During the qualification Leonov got 12th place (it's also his place on the start). But the team continued exploring the new bike, they tried to use all racing time for improving settings. The statistic of exits showes that Leonov's real position during the race will be in frame TOP-6 with the perspective to get on the podium.

Sam Lowes: "I am upset that I couldn't better the time as there was dense traffic. But we are glad with the progress and I think we have the best bike for tomorrow."

Vladimir Leonov: "This day I started from exploring setting that's why it was easy for me to reache 4th position. We were concentrated on adjusting new electronics and we spent a lot of time on searching the right direction. Finally we found it. And I couldn't get higher during last minutes and reach the honored place. I will have to continue the progress during the race tomorrow".