Pata Yamaha Aim To Improve At Second Aragón Round
The Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Official Team with Rizla aims to make further improvements to its performance at the fifth round of the FIM Superbike World Championship at MotorLand Aragón this weekend.
In previous years, the Spanish circuit has been a challenging one for the Pata Yamaha riders and team, so for Michael van der Mark to score his maiden podium at the venue last Sunday with third place in the Tissot Superpole Race was a positive and significant step forward.
Expectations have run high in 2020 for the Official Yamaha squad, with podium and race-winning performance clearly demonstrated in the opening three rounds of the WorldSBK championship.
Phillip Island race-winner Toprak Razgatlıoğlu found the first Aragón round particularly difficult, and the team along with Yamaha’s engineers have been working non-stop to find possible solutions for both riders to improve and focus on fighting for the podium in every race.
As the first ever back-to-back round at the same venue, all teams are anticipated to find another step forward in the coming days and deliver the close, exciting racing that WorldSBK is known for.
The Pirelli Teruel Round will commence this Friday, 4 September, starting at 10:30 local time (GMT+2) with FP1 for the premiere WorldSBK class and 15:00 for FP2.
Michael van der Mark
“I’m looking forward to this weekend again – last weekend was really positive, we made some big progress over the previous years but we were just missing a bit of pace especially over the second part of the race. We have a lot of ideas for this weekend to try on the bike, and the weather will be a little bit warmer than last week so it might be harder to keep the pace, but I’m pretty sure we’ve got some good ideas to fix it. I’m really looking forward to starting on Friday morning when we can start trying those ideas in Free Practice.”
Toprak Razgatlıoğlu
“It was a difficult race weekend for me in Aragón, but it is good because we are here again and we can improve! I felt good in some laps – I was very fast in Sunday warm up in cold conditions – but over race distance I suffered too much with rear grip. We can improve my R1 a lot, I think, and also I can work on my own riding on this track to keep the tyre. Michael was ahead of me last weekend, so the first target is to fight with him and I hope this means we are both battling for the podium.”
Paul Denning, Team Principal
“It will be a “first” for the team and riders to roll out in FP1 on Friday morning on the same circuit that we have just finished Race 2 at a few days previously! Extreme circumstances demand extreme measures, and we have to thank Dorna and the Aragón MotorLand facility for supporting the WorldSBK championship in this way. Conditions should be a little warmer this weekend and this can have a big effect on the grip levels, but in the end our main focus can only be improvement – small detailed steps for Michael and something of a “reset” for Toprak and his R1 in order to elevate his performance to the levels we know he is capable of. As they say in Spain, Vamos!”
