GRT Yamaha Equal Best Results of Season in Barcelona Opener

19-09-2020

GRT Yamaha Equal Best Results of Season in Barcelona Opener

GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team’s Garrett Gerloff enjoyed a strong performance in FIM Superbike World Championship Race 1 from Barcelona, despite the wet conditions in the morning limiting the team's progress, as Federico Caricasulo ran into tyre issues late on while battling inside the top 10.

Saturday in Barcelona began as it had finished on Friday and Gerloff was immediately fast in the rain during the morning practice, clocking the fifth-fastest time, while teammate Caricasulo was 17th.

Both of GRT Yamaha’s 2020 rookies endured a tough Superpole session, with Caricasulo going 13th, ahead of Gerloff in 15th. The difficult qualifying proved costly for the American, who showed an impressive pace during Race 1, but lost contact with the leading group while coming through the field. He still finished in a solid eighth position, equalling his and the team’s best result of the year. For Caricasulo the race was much more difficult, due to the sudden degradation of the front tyre, but he still managed to score one point in 15th.

Ten Kate Yamaha WorldSBK Supported Team’s Loris Baz had a solid qualifying performance and lined up 10th on the Race 1 grid, however he was unable to maintain position at the start, dropping to 15th early on, which became 14th as Caricasulo ran into tyre issues.

Wildcard entrant Jonas Folger enjoyed a promising maiden WorldSBK race. Starting from the back of the grid, having not set a lap time in qualifying due to technical issues, the German climbed up to 12th by the chequered flag to score a handful of points.

Garrett Gerloff: P8

GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team

This weekend has been going very well so far. It was great to finish third overall yesterday, and it was nice to be fifth again this morning. Qualifying was also going very well, I was second when I put the qualifying tyre on and was feeling very good on the bike. But then I just did not have a great lap at all, I made too many mistakes, was riding too aggressively, and wasted my lap with the Q tyre, setting the same time as with the race rubber. Going from second to 15th really hurt me. In the race, though, I had a really good getaway and started getting more comfortable lap after lap, and by the end I went from 15th to eighth, which was very positive. We learned a lot today, and I feel much better with the bike. I just hope that we can have a clean day weather-wise tomorrow and that I can have a good Superpole Race so I can start further up in Race 2. That’s my goal. Big thanks to the whole team for the job that they do, they always give me a really good bike.

Federico Caricasulo: P14

GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team

So far it hasn't been an easy weekend, both because of my crash which made our FP1 more challenging and because of the rain in the other free practices. I went on track with a completely new bike for the Superpole and still managed to stay within a second of the poleman, so that was not bad. Then, in Race, I was in the same group as Garrett and felt very competitive until the 10th lap, when I had a problem with the front tyre which went off, and that forced me to drop to 15th position. Tomorrow we'll try a different tyre, and hopefully it will work.