Tyre management strategy was key, says Iannone

Podium finisher Andrea Iannone said his strategy to work on tyre management at Aragon paved the way for his first podium on the Ecstar Suzuki since Jerez.

Iannone finished in third place behind race winner Marc Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso, with his team-mate, Alex Rins, capping a great day for Suzuki as he slotted into fourth.

Opting to run the soft rear tyre, Iannone said worked throughout the weekend on tyre management with used tyres, which enabled him to be in contention in Sunday’s race on the GSX-RR.

“It was a really great race for us and in many cases, a real battle because first of all, I fight a lot with my tyres, especially with the rear because it is really important to manage for all the race,” he said.

“During the practice we worked in a good direction with the used tyres and in the race I tried to not push a lot and push the bike on the side, and I think this is a really good strategy. From the beginning, Marc and Dovi had a really good pace but fortunately to remain really close, I didn’t need to push at 100 per-cent. When Alex (Rins) overtook me and pushed, I lose a little bit to Dovi and Marc, but I remained calm and I tried to manage the tyre situation for all the race.”

Iannone briefly moved into second place when Dovizioso’s pass on Marquez pushed the Honda rider wide at the final turn before the long back straight, although Marquez was able to drive past the Suzuki – a drawback Iannone said was the only negative point from the race.

“At the end, the last five or six laps I started to recover the gap a little bit. The Honda and Ducati are more faster than us on the straight and I think this is the negative point for the race of today, but it was a good race,” Iannone said.

“We work a lot on the set-up and the soft tyre this weekend for us is a little bit better on the drive when we pick up the bike. With the hard one, we lose something and have more spin, but we improved acceleration on the soft one and we focused on this point on used tyres for the distance, so it was really good.”