News

With one week left until the 2018 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship action gets underway, Kallio Racing have announced Sandro Cortese will be their second rider in the FIM Supersport World Championship, as the German rider makes the switch to the WorldSBK paddock.

Taking the Moto3 title in a hard fought 2012 season, Cortese has spent the majority of his career in the MotoGP™ paddock but is now looking forward to making his debut in the WorldSSP series. Testing with the Yamaha YZF-R6 around the Spanish circuit of Jerez a few weeks ago, the 28 year old soon became well acquainted with the machine.

Cortese is delighted with the signing: “I am really happy. It was a long time before we finalised everything but now that everything is set, I am really excited to go to Australia for the first WorldSSP race. It is a very different bike than the one I used to race with, but after three days of testing I feel really comfortable and happy with the bike and I can say that the pace is already there. It is good that we can still have two more test days in Phillip Island before the race so over there we can then see where we stand compared to the others. We have to be patient but I am feeling very confident about our team.”  

Team manager Vesa Kallio adds: “We have been speaking with Sandro about this signing for a while, and we are delighted it is finally secured. We had to make sure that we are able to get support from both sides, in order to combine forces so that we can have a competitive package. Sandro showed his professional attitude straight away, he got used to the bike quite fast and even if he didn´t do that many laps, his pace already looks really good.”

Keep up with Cortese’s progress throughout the Yamaha Finance Australian Round, with the Official test from Monday 19^th February, all with the WorldSBK VideoPass.