With his best performance since Assen, Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha) found another gear at his Pirelli Emilia-Romagna home Round in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. After off-pace performances at Cremona, with his best placement of P7, then Most, with his pair of P9s, it was unclear how ‘Loka’ was going to perform at Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli”. He made his presence felt all weekend, however, as he landed a P5 in Race 1, a podium finish with P3 in the Tissot Superpole Race, and capped the weekend off with a P4 at Race 2, steps in the right direction for the #55.

FINDING FORM: “I want to keep riding like this, focusing on the next one, and I hope we can stack up good weekends like this”

After establishing himself in third in the Riders’ Championship after landing his long-awaited first WorldSBK win at Assen, Locatelli looked like a potential rival to Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) and Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati), who regularly do battle for the last remaining podium spot behind the superlative Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) and Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati), This was cast into doubt after finding himself mired down the grid at Cremona and Most, but the #55 says he has found something with his Yamaha R1 and judging by his weekend’s results, he may be right.

On his weekend as a whole, Locatelli said: “Finally, we are in a good position again, we have found a good feeling. Yesterday, we raced well, but today I think we took a step forward. We did a really, really good job and were able to finish on the podium in the Superpole Race. With P4 in Race 2, I feel like we lost the ability to get a podium in Race 2, but I am working hard and tried to do my best. It was the best result I could have gotten in the race, but top five is not too bad; we got a lot of points we needed because in the last couple of rounds, we missed a lot of them. I want to keep riding like this, focusing on the next one, and I hope we can stack up good weekends like this, some more podiums, and maybe another race win before the end of the season”

“In the end, we were faster than Petrucci on Sunday while on Saturday we weren’t very close, so I think we made a step” – Locatelli on his Race 2

Starting Race 2 from P3 on the front row, #55 bolted off the line behind Razgatlioglu, who claimed the holeshot, hanging with the defending Champion throughout the first laps. Locatelli showed good pace as he held P2. Behind him, however, Factory Ducati teammates Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and Bulega were charging up the grid from their P5 and P10 starting positions, eventually shuffling Locatelli aside by Lap 11. While the Ducati riders bested him on this occasion, what is clear is that Locatelli has the speed to fight for the podium spots. Now looking to be back in form, the podium competition has just gotten that much tougher for the grid’s other riders.

On his Race 2, Locatelli said: “Bautista was very strong. Riding on the track today was more difficult than on Saturday. We are still riding well, though. In the end, we were faster than Petrucci on Sunday while on Saturday we weren’t very close, so I think we made a step. If it were always like this, we could be happy. It wasn’t enough though, we need to trust more to try to find something that will not necessarily make getting the podium easier, but that will allow us the potential to get more than one podium in a weekend. At the same time, we don’t want to mess anything up; we made a good plan on Friday, and we worked well. We understood some things from the test, and it helped us perform well, and I think it is going to be difficult from here on out in the season, but we need to push hard and always believe to try to be in the podium or top five more.”

Catch Locatelli and his battle with the other riders at the front as the grid heads to Donington for the next round, July 11-13^th! Watch live with the WorldSBK VideoPass! Now 30% off!