Pata Prometeon Yamaha riders Andrea Locatelli and Jonathan Rea completed a single-day test at Cremona Circuit in Italy today, a new venue due to host the FIM Superbike World Championship later this year from 20-22 September.
With severe thunderstorms scattered across the country in the preceding days and a positive forecast for Friday, Yamaha’s Official WorldSBK Team opted to run just one day to give Locatelli and Rea the best opportunity to learn the circuit at speed on their R1 WorldSBK machines.
Around 3pm it looked as though rain might be on the cards, but a building storm missed the circuit and allowed play to continue in full sunshine through to the end of the day.
Second by just 0.059s in a Yamaha 1-2, Locatelli had a very positive day with his #55 crew to complete 95 laps of the 3.768km circuit – the shortest and tightest track layout of the season. Rea finished slightly down the order as his “Q” tyre time attack lap was cut short at the end of the day, but the six-time WorldSBK Champion completed 80 laps with a brief interlude in the afternoon as the #65 crew waited to make a call on the possible impending rain that did not arrive.
Carrying positive momentum forward, the full Pata Prometeon Yamaha team will be back in action before this time next week, with a two-day test scheduled at Misano World Circuit from 30-31 May.
Andrea Locatelli – 1:28.919
“It was the first day for me with the ‘big bike’ on this track and I think we did very well. We were focused to do some laps and try to set-up and understand the R1 here. In only one day, we made a really good lap time and we made a good rhythm on the used tyres so in general I am happy. I have a good feeling and I have good confidence and now we have two more days of testing next week in Misano. I am excited because it was a long time that we didn’t ride! We had a good day, no mistakes, no crash – we did a lot of things and we have good data, and we can arrive in Misano with some more ideas to set-up the bike for Misano race. Cremona looks like a good track and I enjoy quite a lot the first sector and the last sector, because it is where we need to turn a bit more. On the last sector it’s nice to ride, looks like jumping and then to go in the last corner – it’s something different. For sure it’s not a big track so it might not be easy to overtake in the race, but let’s see. We will arrive here in September focused and we will try to get the maximum.”
Jonathan Rea – 1:30.027
“It was nice to get here and get back on my R1, it’s been a while since Assen! Cremona is a new track for WorldSBK and also a new track for me, a new track for almost everybody really. It was important to come here before September and at least learn the way round, so now I know! It looked like we were going to get another thunderstorm in the afternoon, so we were gambling to try and save that afternoon to use more test days in the season – but after a couple of hours we decided it was going to miss us, so we went back out and started really trying to find the limits with the Yamaha R1 on this circuit. It was also important to help get me more comfortable and electronically we worked on a lot of different settings compared to what I was using at the start of the season. Step-by-step, building the set-up – always when you arrive at a new track there’s many areas to adjust and give feedback on to the engineers, just to refine the set-up and get more comfortable pushing closer to the limit because we still have margin to improve.”
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