Gerloff Shows Blistering Pace, Nozane Scores Points on Sunday at San Juan

18-10-2021

Gerloff Shows Blistering Pace, Nozane Scores Points on Sunday at San Juan

The Argentinian round of the FIM Superbike World Championship came to a close on Sunday with two more races at the Circuito San Juan Villicum. In a day characterised by a particularly low level of attrition, the two GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team riders, Garrett Gerloff and Kohta Nozane, fared well, both improving their pace compared to Saturday and each collecting valuable points as the 2021 season nears its close.

Gerloff was immediately at the centre of attention during the morning Warm Up, which he topped with a 1'37.719. He then finished in a solid seventh position in the Superpole Race, having struggled in the early laps.

The same happened at the start of Race 2 - despite a good jump, he lost some positions in the first few corners, dropping to 11th place. By the time he had passed the riders around him, the leaders’ group was already almost five seconds ahead. Now with a clear track, Gerloff started setting fast times and, throughout the final laps, he was as quick as the eventual winner Scott Redding. By the time the chequered flag waved, he had caught Andrea Locatelli, but he did not have enough time to attack him and finished eighth.

Nozane showed great improvement in Race 2 as well. The Japanese started off with a solid 13th place in the Warm Up (1'39.143) and then managed to recover from 17th to 14th in the Superpole Race, also thanks to a pass at the last corner.

Thanks to yet another stellar start, Nozane worked his way up to ninth place in the first few corners of Race 2, but then he slowly lost ground in favour of his rivals, finishing 14th again. Overall, he still managed to run a much faster race than yesterday, taking the chequered flag 15 seconds closer to the leader than he had managed in Race 1. For

SPRC results, click here.
For Race 2 results, click here.

Garrett Gerloff - SPRC: P7 / R2: P8

GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team

It was nice to start the day with a very good pace and the Yamaha R1 felt great. Unfortunately, I had a really difficult time at the beginning of both races, which prevented us from getting much better results. I was able to make progress, but not as much as I would have wanted. It’s frustrating because I know our potential is way better than this, we just need to put the pieces together so we can use the pace that we have and try to move up the leaderboard.

Kohta Nozane - Race 1: P14 / Race 2: P14

GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team

Yesterday my pace was not good enough and I couldn’t be very competitive, but today we improved. My Superpole Race was not so bad, I was in a big battle and could overtake Laverty at the last corner of the last lap. It was a good race but I wanted to finish higher up. Then, in Race 2, I had a great start and I was very fast in the first few laps. In the second half of the race, though, I couldn’t keep the same pace, I lost some positions and I finished 14th, which was a little disappointing. In Indonesia we will keep making progress.