'Excluded' Bimota riders thrilled with results
Ayrton Badovini and Christian Iddon have expressed their delight at the performance of the brand-new Alstare Bimota BB3 in its maiden weekend of World Superbike competition as the Italian bike proved competitive in the EVO class out of the box.
A contentious entry in that Bimota is yet to meet its homologation quota, though the FIM and Dorna have allowed iconic marque to compete this season, it cannot score points until it has produced the necessary bikes. Until it does, regardless of where Badovini or Iddon finish, they will be deemed as 'excluded' on the final results.
Despite this, Badovini in particular was a star performer over the weekend, rarely outside the top three in the EVO reckoning from the very first session and going on to 'unofficially' finish 13th and 12th in the two races.
Better still, Badovini is confident he would have finished higher had he not suffered a poor start in both races, before adding that there is still much more to come from the bike.
"Considering that this is our first race weekend, I am happy and I think we've done a good job and maybe surprised a few people. I'm happy because I finished both races without any problems and I improved my feeling with the bike - especially in the second race.
"I'm sorry about my little problem at the start of the second race and I'm sure if I had made a better start, I would've finished higher up. After the problem, which caused me to lose some places, I settled down into a good rhythm and began to push much harder. We've a lot of work to do for the next race, but I am happy with our debut today and confident about our future."
Iddon, meanwhile, took great pleasure in making his WSBK debut, the Englishman showing strong improvements over the course of the weekend, culminating in a 17th place finish in race one.
"The first race was a great experience and a real milestone in my career," he said. "My debut in World Superbikes - and doing it with such a famous brand and with such a great team. I had a few (electronic) issues in Race 1, but I the team sorted them out for Race 2 and I was really looking forward to pushing much harder and exploring the bike's potential.
"Everything was going well and Ayrton and I were having a good battle with a group of riders, but then I started to have a problem with my seat - it fell off! I carried on for about another four laps, but then the bike stopped. The seat has a sensor, which is activated when you crash, so I guess (because the seat fell off) the sensor thought I'd fallen off and cut the bike out. But, apart from that, I feel that it has been a very productive weekend for all of us in the team.
"We've learned a lot in such a short space of time and we'll use that information to improve their bike next time out. As this was not one of my favourite circuits, I'm pretty happy with how things went this weekend."
