Estoril has so far proved to be very “unpolite” with the weather, even on Saturday the rain affected the Superpole, then riders found dry conditions in Race 1. A lot of management, it took a few laps to get into the rhythm, but in the end a top 9 and the Best Independent came!
In FP 3 the rain felt during the night left the asphalt completely wet, Andrea Iannone went out on the track to check that everything was in order on his Ducati Panigale V4-R, but without taking any particular risks.
Free Practice 3:
P 1 J. Rea 1.53.126
P 2 D. Petrucci + 0.232
P 3 T. Razgatlioglu + 0.242
…
P 16 A. Iannone + 4.822
Just before the Superpole another shower of rain forces the riders to tackle the qualifying in full wet conditions. The #29 finds a good reference on the track, improves his feeling in the wet and settles inside the top ten. Unfortunately he is unable to take advantage of the last two laps, being overtaken by four riders; twelfth position on the grid, in the middle of the group. The main problem in the wet remains the lack of rear grip which causes the loss of tenths in the fast turns.
Superpole:
P 1 T. Razgatlioglu 1.52.430
P 2 D. Petrucci + 0.082
P 3 J. Rea + 0.509
…
P 12 A. Iannone + 2.086
Between Superpole and Race 1, a timid sun comes out, the asphalt dries with a few wet patches still out of the trajectory. The first session with slicks therefore is with the race. Iannone starts well, immediately recovers a couple of positions, then suffers the overtaking of Van der Mark and Lecuona. Lap after lap he finds more and more confidence, improving tenth after tenth. When Gerloff catches up, however, a straight at the first braking point causes him to lose about two seconds and for the next three laps he is couldn’t find his rhythm. With Petrucci’s crash, Andrea takes the position of Best Independent, defending it until the finish line. The last five or six laps prove to be really fast for the rider from Vasto, so much so that he is in line with the times of the top 5, which gives hope in view of the sunny Sunday in Estoril. Today it was easy to make a mistake, there were so many crashes, but with the ninth place he earned points for the Championship.
Race 1:
P 1 T. Razgatlioglu 34’15.509
P 2 N. Bulega + 9.221
P 3 I. Lecuona + 11.020
…
P 9 A. Iannone + 24.239
Andrea Iannone (Rider):“I’m quite satisfied, considering that we had no references in the end I managed to ride with similar pace to those in front. We collected important data, we definitely have to work in view of tomorrow and fix some aspects but we are optimistic.”
Denis Sacchetti (Team Manager):“The weather has affected our performance here at Estoril a bit so far; we found a good set-up in the wet, but then the race was dry and obviously we didn’t have any data to work on. It took a few laps to get into the rhythm and find the right references, but the second half of the race was positive and tomorrow I’m convinced we can make a step forward. In any case, we took home a good result, a lot of data to work on and the Best Independent of Race 1!”
