A bruising weekend in Mugello for the American Racing Team as early contact hindered Sean Dylan Kelly’s race whilst Rory Skinner was forced to sit out due to injury.
It was a difficult start to Sean’s weekend in Mugello as he suffered from an arm problem early in the first session. Despite his physical issue, he improved on by two seconds across the practices to finish combined 22nd.
Two big moments hindered Sean’s qualifying, dropping him away from the group he was riding with and preventing him from improving on his time, putting him 23rd on the grid for the ItalianGP.
As the lights went out for the 19-lap race, Sean suffered early contact with another rider, sending him wide. The American then had to take avoiding action for a crash ahead of him, putting him to the back of the field.
Latching onto the group ahead of him, Sean began a race-long battle with Lorenzo Dalla Porta as the duo chopped and changed positions.
With crashes throughout, it was a race of attrition with Sean crossing the finish line in 19th place.
Rory had an egg-beater of a first visit to the iconic Tuscan circuit as he crashed at turn 14 during second practice, bringing out the red flag with 25 minutes remaining and damaging his right ankle.
The Scot powered through to put in eight laps in the final practice before Jeremy Alcoba tucked the front of his machine, taking himself and Rory into the gravel at turn two. After a check at the medical centre, Rory and the team opted for him to withdraw for the remainder of the weekend ahead of the two remaining races of the triple header.
Sean Dylan Kelly #4
That was probably the toughest weekend of the season so far. It was extra difficult because I had some high expectations of myself just because of the way we were coming along and the way that we finished Le Mans, but we know that sometimes racing goes the way it goes.
We started off on the back foot on Friday, I had a lot of physical issues and honestly, I felt like I didn’t really get my first laps until Saturday, so I was playing a little bit of catch-up and because of that, I didn’t really qualify where I wanted to be even though the lap time was getting better.
For the race, it was not great. On my first lap, I had big contact with another rider and went wide then got caught in that crash right in front of me. Luckily, I didn’t go down but that put me dead last out of the first corner and then after that I was able to pass a few guys but I just got stuck with the wrong people and wasn’t able to set my own pace and so I’m just pretty pissed off right now.
I’m really happy that it’s just a few days away to be able to turn this around as I’m really looking forward to Germany and I just want to say sorry to the team because I’m not happy with my performance and we need to change this around and bring some results in the next two rounds.
Rory Skinner #33
It’s not been a great weekend really. I enjoyed the laps I did during the Mugello track, and I’ve started to feel more and more comfortable, but things didn’t really go to plan in FP2, I had a small moment which resulted in a pretty big crash, but I appreciate the boys getting the bike rebuilt after basically it being totalled.
FP3, I was quite hurt, I did some ligament damage to my right foot, so we were just trying to see where we were at as it was a whole new bike that the boys had to build for me, so I was adjusting to that as well. I kind of got the pace towards where we were yesterday, finishing off yesterday and, it didn’t feel too bad, it was quite sore but then another rider just got a bit impatient for no real reason and wiped me clean out. Unfortunately, that put me out for the remainder of the weekend.
I’ve got bleeding within three of the bones on my right ankle, so I’ve got quite a lot of pain which isn’t ideal but hopefully, we are ready for Sachsenring, but we’ll have to wait and see.
