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It’s been another solid season in the 2022 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship for Andrea Locatelli. The Italian has finished all-but-one race inside the top six and started every race from the first two rows of the grid. After finishing fourth in the standings last year, he was lauded for his performances and whilst he’s on course to match that feat in 2022, it’s clear that he’s a more consistent rider now than during his rookie campaign. 

AIMING TO TURN IT AROUND: 2021’s troubles, 2022’s potential

This weekend the WorldSBK paddock heads to Britain and the fabled Donington Park circuit. Last year at the 4km long circuit, Locatelli had one of his toughest rounds. A retirement in Race 1 and two poor showings on Sunday left him scratching his head. Donington Park is one of the most challenging tracks on the calendar and as a first-time visitor it was clear that Locatelli was left with a Rubik’s Cube trying to find a solution. Year two in WorldSBK offers him a chance to right the wrongs of twelve months ago and use this as proof of his progress this season. Armed with the knowledge that came from a difficult weekend last year, ‘Loka’ is a rider to keep an eye on this weekend.

Crew chief Andrew Pitt, no stranger to Donington Park, gave his insight: “Honestly, I think that it's a bit of a myth that you need to have a special setting for Donington,” he began. “Every circuit means that you have to make a compromise and Donington is no different. When you look at the season so far, we've had tracks like Estoril where you need to have really good performance for heavy braking, but you've also got a lot of fast corners too. Donington has a bit of everything. There're flat corners, there's banked corners and there's some off-camber turns. It's a good challenge because there's rises and falls at Donington, so that's something for the rider to manage.”

The myths that Pitt speaks of are well known. The nearby East Midlands Airport has a landing approach that goes right over the start-finish straight. For years, it was rumoured that the jet fuel reduced grip on the asphalt and that crashes at the last corner were as a result of this. In reality, the bumps on the entry to Goddard’s are enough to lead to crashes. For Pitt the challenge is maximising the package available to him and Locatelli, and he’ll do this the same way that he does at every other round; plugging away and trying to make progress with every exit on track.

FINAL APPROACH: the same method as every other venue

“We use our base setting at every track. From Friday morning practice, we’ll try and use the same settings and make a few small changes; a turn of preload here and there etc, but it’s more or less the same setting in the bike at every track. From that point onwards, we'll fine-tune the bike for the rest of the weekend. Most of the work that we do on the bike is about tailoring the electronics to the rider’s feedback and working with the specific tyres for that weekend to get the most out of the package.”

Despite not having long straights, Donington Park is one of the faster tracks on the WorldSBK calendar. The super-fast Assen and Catalunya tracks will generate a faster lap time, but Donington is as fast as the roller coaster of Portimao. Without long straights it generates this high average speed with a series of fast corners. The most famous of these come in the opening sector. From the top of the hill at Redgate (Turn 1), the bikes snake down through Hollywood, the Craner Curves and into the Old Hairpin. 

The Old Hairpin is possibly the most important corner on the track. It is a key overtaking opportunity if you’re close enough to the rider in front but it’s also the corner that you need to exit really well for a fast lap. You’ll carry your speed all the way through the next kilometre on track until McLeans. 

HOW TO TAKE ON CRANER CURVES: tyre temperature is crucial

“The Craner Curves are an issue because the left side of the tyre is cool because it's not been used too much at that point. Once the rider knows the line through Craner, there's not actually a big risk through there once you have temperature in your tyres. The key is not to dawdle and cruise around because if you do this it'll mean the temperature drops from the tyre. The weather looks really good for this weekend too so it should be fine!”

There are plenty of opportunities for making mistakes around Donington Park so for Pitt, the job is to make the bike as predictable as possible. Giving his rider the confidence he needs to push to the limit is critical here: “As a crew, we'll work on making sure that the bike is stable in the faster corners but also that the bike can stop well in the slower corners which are the main overtaking opportunities. The faster corners do give an opportunity to overtake too at Donington and that makes it a real riders’ track. There's not much time with the throttle opened fully at Donington so you need a bike that is working well. Hopefully it'll suit us.”

The track has certainly suited Yamaha in the past with Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) and Michael van der Mark both claiming double race wins here in recent years. On top of that, Garrett Gerloff (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) took second at Donington Park in Race 2 of 2021, his last podium to-date, whilst the likes of Alex Lowes have been in podium contention before aboard YZF-R1 machinery.

Watch the Prosecco DOC UK Round from Donington Park LIVE with the WorldSBK VideoPass!