2023-04-26 18:35:42
Only one week after signing a 12th position in the last edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on the Yamaha R1 of the Wojckik Racing Team, Isaac Viñales had to quickly change the chip to get into WorldSBK mode and participate in the first European round of the championship in Assen, scene of the debut of the team founded by his uncle -and father of Maverick- Ángel Viñales, along with Lucio Pedercini.
All the members of the TPR by Viñales Racing Team were aware of how difficult it would be to compete successfully in this third round of the championship, the first for the Italian-Spanish structure, That is why they faced the weekend as a long test day to get your ZX-10 RR ready for the upcoming events on the calendar.
The driver from Llansá was unable to go beyond 22nd position in the Superpole session on Saturday, where he finished 2.4 seconds behind the reference time set by Álvaro Bautista; that same day, in Race 1, Viñales limited himself to knowing and understanding the behavior of his Kawasaki in race conditionstaking the bike to the finish line in the last position (23rd).
On Sunday, with some kilometers already accumulated on his ZX-10RR, Isaac tried to advance positions in the Superpole Race, but he was forced to abandon with two laps to go; later, in the second race of the weekend, the Catalan was benefited by the large number of retirements and crashes – up to six drivers failed to finish – and that earned him 18th, fighting until the end against the Italian Bmax Racing BMW, Gabriele Ruiu.
“It has been our first weekend of the season and I am quite happy with the work we have done. The team is completely new and little by little we have been improving”Viñales summed up at the close of the Assen round.
“The first race helped me understand a lot of things and I felt confident for the rest of the weekend. On Sunday we made a big step forward compared to Saturday and that’s positive.. In the Superpole Race we had a little problem and we couldn’t finish it, but in the second race we improved our pace a lot, especially from the middle of the race“, valued the Catalan, satisfied with all the information collected in the Netherlands.
Isaac Viñales assures that “we know where we need to improve”, and wants to publicly thank his team “for the work they have done throughout the weekend, and I hope even more in Montmeló”.
For the Team Manager of the team, Lucio Pederciniseeing Isaac finish both feature races and progressing throughout the weekend was enough to leave Assen satisfied: “We knew that with so few tests and without having played the full season this year, it would not be easy, so we came to Assen with the mentality that the dutch round would be a long test for us. I am pretty sure that we have both improved and that we have understood what we need to work on, so we will try to take a step forward in Catalunya.”
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Lucio is convinced of Isaac’s potential on the ZX-10RR, which is why he insists that “We will continue to do our best, we believe in the project and we will continue working. Isaac has come straight from a 24 hour endurance race, and he has done well to re-adapt to the Kawasaki in such a short time. It’s good that we finally completed our first race. See you in Spain”.
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