MV AGUSTA AND JULES CLUZEL ON THE PODIUM AGAIN

In the third round of the World Supersport championship, MV Agusta
and French rider Jules Cluzel were back on the podium again. The poor
start, which saw both riders of the MV Agusta Reparto Corse – Yakhnich
Motorsport Team lose
several positions, made the race a difficult, uphill challenge. While
Jules Cluzel managed to disentangle himself and reach the group fighting
for fourth place, Vladimir Leonov got boxed in, coming into direct
contact with other
riders numerous times. Nevertheless, the two riders fought like lions,
and Jules managed to conquer a fantastic third place. He now lies 4th in
the overall standings, just eight points behind the leader Florian
Marino.

Jules Cluzel: “It was a very long, hard race. I didn’t get off to a
good start and initially found myself fighting for 7th/8th place. I
wasn’t at my best today, but was still convinced I could make it into
the top four and, in the
end, that’s exactly what happened. Zanetti put in a great performance,
attacking all the time, but I managed to get past him and clinch fourth
place: then Sofuoglu’s unexpected retirement gifted me a place on the
podium. We need to
keep on working hard to make our bike even more competitive at the next
race”.

Vladimir Leonov: “I made a mistake at the start and lost several
positions. I tried to claw back as many as possible, but it’s hard to
fight back when you’re continually obstructed by close-quarters fighting
in the midst of the
bunch and can’t make full use of our bike’s outstanding speed. I was
pushed off the track not once, but twice! At a certain point one of my
rivals hit me as I was heading into a left-hand bend and damaged both
the exhaust and my
leather suit. Luckily, I managed to stay on the bike. It was tough, but I
managed to recover and finish twelfth.

Superbike Race 1 unexpectedly took place on a dry track so the riders
were able to battle it out under the best possible conditions. For much
of the time Claudio Corti was straddling 16th place, but in the second
half of the
race he started closing the gap between him and the group in front and
then managed to bridge it entirely. In the closing stages of the race
the rider from Como was lapping about half a second faster than the
three/four riders
preceding him, but an early red flag meant he had to be content with
14th place. In Race 2, in the wet, Claudio was clearly demonstrating
both his own racing talent and the excellent set-up of his F4 RR (from
both a suspension
and electronic viewpoint) as, lap after lap, he made his way up the
field. Unluckily, when Claudio was in ninth place, the transponder
caused him to fall. The lithium battery inside the transponder exploded
so the latter stopped
sending the control unit the signal indicating the bike’s passage over
the finishing line; this put the entire electronic set-up out of phase
and Corti suddenly found he had no traction control. Hence the
inevitable fall.

Claudio Corti: “We were really unlucky! The morning race wasn’t easy.
Our goal has always been to stay ahead of the EVOs. We’d almost reached
them but, just as the opportunity for us to attack came, the race was
interrupted.
I reckon I could otherwise have gained at least three more positions. In
the afternoon things got even more complicated as we have no racing
experience in such tough weather. I started in 17th place, but still
managed to climb back
to 9th. We were in the top ten, ahead of the EVOs. Unfortunately we
hadn’t reckoned with the compulsory transponder. Its internal lithium
battery exploded so the transponder stopped working and failed to send
the control unit the
over-the-finish-line signal; this sent all the electronic set-ups
haywire. I found myself cornering without traction control and that’s
why I fell. I’m also really sorry for the team because they worked their
hearts out this weekend.”