Andrea Locatelli: “We deserved this podium” at Jerez World Superbike
“In the last part of the season, we’ve made a step forward…”
Andrea Locatelli made a long-awaited return to the WorldSBK podium in Race 1 at this weekend’s Spanish Round, something the Italian feels has been coming for a while.
The Yamaha rider was running in a podium position in Race 2 at Estoril last weekend, but crashed out at turn seven and handed the third step to Honda’s Iker Lecuona.
Lecuona was again in the fight for the podium with Locatelli in Jerez Race 1 today, as was Kawasaki's Alex Lowes. Although Lecuona made progess early on, passing Lowes, he was never able to get the better of Locatelli, and ended up dropping to fifth, back behind Lowes, by the end.
Returning to podium pace was further proof to Locatelli that he and Yamaha have made genuine progress recently.
“We deserved this podium,” Locatelli told WorldSBK.com after Race 1 in Jerez.
“We’re always close to making a podium. In the last part of the season, we’ve made a step forward and been fighting in the top five and now we’re back on the podium.
“We were close in Estoril, but we were unlucky.”
It’s also a rostrum finish that was hard to predict for Locatelli after Friday’s running when he ended FP1 in eighth and FP2 down in 13th.
“I was really struggling with the bike yesterday,” he said. “But today we did an amazing job, and the confidence was there since Superpole.
“We had an amazing Race 1. Let’s try to do even better tomorrow.”
