Highs and lows for team Althea in Istanbul

The eleventh round of the World Superbike championship took place this weekend at Intercity Istanbul Park in Turkey. Thanks to his solid performance yesterday in the Superpole, Davide Giugliano started today’s races from the front row, in third position. The races took place in sunny conditions and on a dry track. In race one Davide made a very fast start and the Althea Racing rider was in fifth place through the initial laps. Towards mid-race Giugliano was fighting in the second group of riders, finally closing the race in fifth position, having battled it out with Elias right to the line. A great performance for Davide who once again finished right on the heels of the factory riders. In the second race he again made a rapid start and was up in third position through the first corners. Unfortunately as the race progressed, the Althea rider was unable to maintain a strong rhythm due to grip and setting issues that caused him to lose several positions, finally crossing the line ninth.

The next World Superbike round will take place on 28 and 29 September at the Laguna Seca circuit in the USA.

Davide Giugliano: “The first race went well and the feeling I had with the bike allowed me to score fifth place which I was happy with. I made contact with Elias at the final corner, but not on purpose of course. We just both took different lines and this resulted in contact as happens in many races. In the second race I unfortunately suffered from grip problems and was unable to keep the kind of rhythm that had allowed me stay with the leaders in race one. We’ll now investigate the reason for this lack of grip, which didn’t allow me to race as I’d hoped to. I thank my team that has, as always, worked very hard all weekend.”

Genesio Bevilacqua: “In race one we defended ourselves well and Davide put in a very good performance. A very positive race. Unfortunately the second one didn’t go so well. We still have to analyse the data to see what caused our rider to slow down; he was unable to express himself as he wanted to. We return hom with results that could have been better, but overall the weekend was positive.”

Race 1 : 1) Laverty (Aprilia) – 2) Melandri (BMW) – 3) Sykes (Kawasaki) – 4) Guintoli (Aprilia) – 5) Giugliano (Aprilia) – 6) Elias (Aprilia) – 7) Cluzel (Suzuki) – 8) Davies (BMW)

Race 2 : 1) Laverty (Aprilia) – 2) Sykes (Kawasaki) – 3) Guintoli (Aprilia) – 4) Melandri (BW) – 5) Elias (Aprilia) – 6) Davies (BMW) – 7) Cluzel (Suzuki) - 9) Giugliano (Aprilia)