After ‘carding’ a Magny-Cours ‘round’ of 3-4-4 Pata Yamaha’s Andrea Locatelli leapfrogged Alex Lowes into fourth place overall in the WorldSBK championship fight.
He has long been the top rookie of 2021, making a transition at Assen that saw him take a first podium after some early season struggles. Difficult for him for a short time after his astonishingly potent WorldSSP Championship win - also as a rookie - in 2020.
Did we say Assen? Assen as in where Razgatlioglu and Locatelli himself strayed only just into the green on the exit of the final chicane and lost places as a result?
Locatelli, like many others is not so keen on the green paint, but he did not see the video of Razgatlioglu being pinged for the same thing on Sunday in the French Superpole race.
Not at least before saying, “I don’t see the video. I don’t see nothing. I think it’s crazy rules, but this is the rules. I repeat, maybe if you take out the advantage during the last lap or because maybe you overtake and you touched the green, we can discuss about this. But if you are in the front and you touch a little bit, you don’t take an advantage.
“Yeah, I remember very well,” he said about Assen and his own loss of what would have been a first podium in the Superpole race.
He said it feels like… “In Italian it’s [fooling, joke. They are making a joke against you] Like school. It’s crazy, crazy. This is the joke. It’s strange rules. I hope in the commission that we can try to remove this, or we try to do something. These are crazy rules. Everything started from Misano, but in Misano when the guys go out, maybe you can take advantage, but on this track, like in this video, I think Toprak lost the time. But okay.”
Locatelli and VDM had a potentially nasty incident when, as it transpired later, VDM’s brake lever and Locatelli’s elbow connected on the exit of the final chicane in race two. Locatelli said of it, “I can’t explain a lot because I don’t see. I don’t see what happened. I’m sure it’s Michael touched me, but I don’t see him because when I see on the chicane, my bike start to lean in a little bit, I try to put out my bike and then he touched me on the elbow. I don’t know what happened. I don’t see the video. The guys tell me it’s a crazy moment. I think when he touched me on the elbow, with his front lever, front brake I think.”
Locatelli’s improvement in championship position came partly after Lowes had two big race DNFs, and he is aware that he is moving on and on in his rookie season.
“It’s really good results. We need to be happy and for sure, now we have another weekend for me not so bad because we go in Barcelona. I know very well the track. Maybe we start a little bit more advantage here because I never seen this track with this bike. For sure in Barcelona also we make the test in the first part of the season during the winter time. For sure, we have some reference and we can start more fast than here. We will see. But for sure we can do very well also in Barcelona.”
With Rea always either winning or there and there abouts with Razgatlioglu, maybe Locatelli will be able to help his team-mate win the title in the latter stages of the season. ‘Maybe’, said Locatelli, partly because Razgatlioglu is so fast.
“The small problem is Johnny can try to stay every time with Toprak. For try to help a little bit Toprak, I need to stay with Toprak. We will see in the future in the next races what happens. But for sure, we are here and also I want to help if I can a little bit Toprak because for me, also my objective is maybe to finish with the team on the first position. This is for me so good, and also for me, for my career, for everything, for my experience, for my aptitude. Also because Toprak helped me during the wintertime to try to improve a little bit.
“This is for me fine and I think it’s my character, this one. You help me, I can help you because I am friendly. For sure we try until the end to push and to get the maximum and we will see.”
