Puccetti: "It Will Take Us Two, Three Years to Become Very Good"
Kawasaki Puccetti Racing Team Manager sets WorldSBK goals
The Kawasaki Puccetti Racing squad had an incredibly successful season in 2016 that saw Kenan Sofuoglu win the World Supersport Championship, Randy Krummenacher finish third and collectively they won the Teams’ Championship. Not only that, but Axel Bassani from the Puccetti run San Carlo Team Italia, won the FIM Europe Supersport Cup, adding to the Team Manager’s success.
After competing in the WorldSSP Championship for the past three years, Kawasaki Puccetti Racing is preparing to make the step up into the WorldSBK arena with Randy Krummenacher, and Team Manager Manuel Puccetti is realistic about the team’s goals in their first season next year.
“After two, three seasons that have been very good for us, we needed to make the step forward to the Superbike Championship,” said Puccetti. “We will make the step with Randy and it won’t be easy for sure, I think it will take us two, three years to become very good there… I hope!
“We will go at the end of November, beginning of December to Spain for testing but we need time now because it will be the first time ever for us in WorldSBK. We need to understand really very well all the parts, but we will be strong I think because we will work hard. We have a very good bike and we will be very close to the official team but we will need time to show everybody this. I think we will need to wait until the midseason for our true potential to show. “
Not only will WorldSBK be a new frontier for the Champion WorldSSP team, Puccetti also plans to extend his reach into the new Supersport 300 category too with a team composed of young talent from Italy and Turkey. The line up hasn’t been confirmed and the decision to field a team in the category is relatively new. When asked, Puccetti stays coy about the details only revealing that a Puccetti team will have a presence in the category.
“About the 300 category, we started thinking about it only in the last two or three weeks,” admitted Puccetti. “But it should be that we will have a team there with some young kids from the Italian Federation and also the Turkish Federation, but at this point we will see.”
In World Supersport, 2017 will be business as usual for the Kawasaki squad as Kenan Sofuoglu has been confirmed for another year. His new teammate however hasn’t been announced as yet, but Puccetti reveals he will be competitive, saying, “We will compete with two riders in Supersport and our the second rider will be a very fast young Italian rider. He’s a young kid that comes from the Italian Federation, he’s very fast. We can’t say today but he will be very strong I think.”
