VOL. 50 ISSUE 26 JULY 2, 2013
seconds down) in race one and
eighth (38 seconds down) in
race two.
But we save the worst for last
and Ducati's hometown performance. Or should we say lack
of it. With Ducati Alstare's Ayrton
Badovini fourth on day one it was
looking rosy, but Carlos Checa is
off his fighting food right now and
he finished 11th and 12th. He was
waved to like the departing hero
he will surely become if the Panigale project does not get to the
level required by all in red.
"This weekend has been
hard," Checa said. "Honestly, I
expected to take a step forward
here at Imola but it didn't go as
we'd hoped. We've made a series of changes over the week-
end, but they haven't brought the
desired results. I had problems
with grip at the rear of the bike in
both races and it was difficult to
change direction."
Badovini was better, but not
much so and went eighth in race
one (29 seconds back) and 10th
in race two (41 seconds back).
Yes, 41. Checa was 52 seconds
away from Sykes.
After the first bad turn of the
cards for Guintoli's Aprilia ace
of spades, Sykes now has 235
points, Guintoli 229 and Laverty
190. Melandri is closer to the Vfours with 182, Davies has 154,
Baz 136 and Rea, an increasingly
stranded 125.
The next round – in Russia – is
scheduled for mid-July.
CN
P95
Briefly...
Yamaha is 10-12 horsepower down
on the bike Chaz Davies had in 2011.
The progress made by the Kawasaki in 2013 has been demonstrated not by the fact that Tom Sykes
took pole with ease on a race tire
so much as that the team arrived
and made a click here or there for
Sykes to take on the challenge of
Imola after Portimao, which was a
click away from the previous round
at Donington.
Carmelo Ezpeleta and Javier
Alonso arrived at Imola for the race
on Sunday, after a great MotoGP
round at Assen on Saturday. They
would not be drawn on the rules,
but did not deny the Evo class
ethos would come in for a second
tier of World Superbike in 2014.
