Andrea Iannone: if I’m Not at the Top Level I Will Hand Over the Bike to a Young Rider

RiderTua.com – After 4 years of not racing Andrea Iannone was bothered by the fact that the rookie from the Go-Eleven team couldn’t access any data for his Ducati Panigale V4R. For information, after races at Phillip Island, Barcelona and Assen, the next SBK race will only be held in mid-June at Misano. To bridge the gap of almost 8 weeks, the team will test on May 23-24 at the new track in Cremona and on May 30-31 at Misano.

As a newcomer, Iannone will take advantage of these two test opportunities to further improve his performance. “We will do everything. Hopefully my feeling will be better, our starting point is good,” he said.

Andrea Iannone: If I’m not at the top level I will hand over the bike to a young rider

At Assen, due to the lack of data from last year, Andrea Iannone suffered a lot from changing conditions, but he could not do anything about Philipp Ottl’s condition in the last two seasons.

Andrea Iannone

The Italian rider said that he was riding in a very different way, so everything changed completely. Iannone can’t use the data. Bulega also races in a very different way, he accelerates like on a Moto2 bike. The one that is most similar to Iannone’s style is Alvaro (Bautista’s) style. But the fairing is also fundamentally different. And he raced very smoothly because he weighed 20 kilograms less than Iannone.

Iannone explained that he doesn’t know if this gives him or Bautista an advantage. He didn’t want to discuss Alvaro’s weight. “He’s short, I’m taller, I have advantages he doesn’t have and vice versa. However, he’s the only one who rides the same way as me. We both straighten the bike at the start of the corner and also control the wheelies when accelerating. We ride like in MotoGP I have to adapt the bike a little.”

Iannone said he had support from Ducati, but he also needed more. “We will try to improve during the test. And I hope Ducati supports me more. I often chat with Gigi Dall’Igna and Marco Zambenedetti and they all support me. But it is a different form of support. When it comes to the final details it is different, I am not factory rider,” emphasized the rider who is currently ranked 6th in the World Championship and is the best satellite team rider.

How does Iannone rate his performance since his comeback? He said that if he wasn’t at the top level, he wouldn’t continue, he promised. “When I made my comeback, I had a clear plan. If I struggled for 15th place, I would not race again. Then I would give my bike to a younger rider so he could have fun. But now I know that I still there are many possibilities that can be done,” said the 34 year old rider.

“We need time to get there, but I’m sure we can do it. We will try to win. In the first race, our target was the top 10, but that’s no longer the case. Now we know that we can fight for the top 5 and we have to do it. And there will be a chance for us to win. That’s why I’m pushing for more support for the 2 months until Misano. I need everything to be perfect, that’s my commitment,” concluded Iannone.