This weekend Andrea Locatelli and Jason O’Halloran will race for Pata Maxus Yamaha at Round 2 of the 2025 FIM Superbike World Championship, at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve from 28-30 March.
For Locatelli, in his fifth year with Yamaha’s Official Team, the aim is to push for the podium – starting with a strong Friday Free Practice to set up well for the main points-paying races.
O’Halloran stands in for Jonathan Rea, while the six-time WorldSBK Champion recovers from injuries sustained at Phillip Island last month. It will be the Australian’s first taste of the Pata Maxus Yamaha R1 race machine as he begins his role as Yamaha’s 2025 WorldSBK test rider, alongside competing for the Yamalube YART Yamaha EWC Official Team.
O’Halloran also has limited experience of the tricky Portuguese track, so the team and Yamaha’s engineers will be working together to support O’Halloran through the weekend.
“The Portimão circuit is known widely as “The Rollercoaster” and for good reason!” Yamaha’s Rider Coach, Eugene Laverty explains. “There’s so many ups and downs that make it very physical for the riders. Braking down into Turn 1 is so steep the front forks will always bottom out no matter what set-up, so you can’t really worry about that! The key to mastering Portimão is to use all of the track available on corner entry and then have the patience on the initial stage of opening the gas to let the bike turn and use less track width on corner exit. Set-up wise, the biggest bonus for a rider is having a bike that turns well – as that makes a smaller exit arc from the corner much easier for the rider to achieve.”
“One interesting thing I’ve also noticed over the years is how the wind can affect your race,” Laverty adds. “On the grid for Race 1, it’s important to note the wind direction as a tail wind on the start-finish straight makes braking with a full tank of fuel into Turn 1 difficult. It’s very easy to go wide and find yourself down the back of the field in a flash, so it’s worth doing your homework before the start.”
WorldSBK Free Practice 1 begins on Friday at 10:35 WET – local time (UTC) and Free Practice 2 at 15:00, both 45-minutes long each.
Andrea Locatelli:
“It was great to have the opportunity for two days of testing at Portimão recently for us to prepare for this race and the rest of the season – unfortunately the conditions were not the best, we found a lot of water there on the morning of the first day and also in the middle of the second day! We were able to do a couple of sessions though and find a good feeling with my R1, but we know we need to continue to work hard and push hard. Finally, I am happy because we are returning for another race weekend after a long break since the first round in Australia. It’s important to achieve the maximum result that we can, for sure we know it will not be easy but I will do my best from Friday to work with my crew on the set-up for the race weekend.”
Jason O’Halloran:
“I’m really looking forward to the weekend – the last time I rode at Portimão was at a BSB test in 2019, but I really enjoyed the track and went quite well there. For sure this weekend will be a learning experience: first time on the Yamaha R1 WorldSBK and first time back at the track for a long time. Obviously most of the guys from the championship had a test there recently and we’ll be playing catch up, but the most important thing for us this weekend is just to enjoy it, for me to understand the bike and gain as much knowledge and experience as possible to help with Yamaha’s testing programme going forwards. I’m looking forward to getting started, it’s the beginning of a busy few weeks for me but it’s a pleasure to be joining Pata Maxus Yamaha in Portimão.”
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