Four top-ten results for Team SBK Ducati Alstare at the Ring

Nürburgring, Germany - Highs and lows for Team SBK Ducati Alstare during round 10 of the 2013 World Superbike championship this weekend at the Nürburgring. After scoring pole position yesterday, Ayrton Badovini finished today’s races in seventh and ninth place, Carlos Checa crossed the line tenth.

Race 1 – the first race took place in cold but dry conditions (air temp 14˚C, track 21˚C). Starting from pole for the first time in his Superbike career, Ayrton lost several positions through the first corners, placing eleventh by lap two. Followed by his team-mate Carlos, twelfth, who was able to make up a number of positions in the opening stages, the two Ducati Alstare men maintained those positions for the best part of the race. The race was brought to an early close by Race Direction when Rea and Camier were the victims of a bad accident two laps from the end. As a result, Badovini closed in final ninth position, Checa just behind him in tenth.

Race 2 – With less riders taking part after race one’s incident, Carlos started from fifteenth on the grid this time around. He was up in eleventh place after one lap and his position remained as such for almost the entire race. Despite fighting to catch first Cluzel and later Neukirchner, he was unable to pass them and thus closed the race in tenth place. Ayrton made a better start than he did in race one and was able to maintain a strong pace for the duration of the race. By lap six he was in seventh position behind Giugliano, a position that he was able to hold until the line.

Ayrton Badovini: “Unfortunately in the first race I lost too much ground in the first laps and many guys got past me. I was having trouble and made some mistakes too. For race 2 we made a small change to the bike and I decided to approach it with a different mentality and take things more calmly. It worked because I was able to be more precise, more consistent lap after lap. I’m pleased because besides the result, seventh, the important thing was that I was able to close the overall gap between myself and the leaders. All in all it’s been a positive weekend, one of the best we’ve had so far.”

Carlos Checa: “What can I say, the results speak for themselves. We made changes between race one and two but unfortunately this didn’t make a great deal of difference. I’ve had trouble getting the right balance with the bike this weekend. Contrary to Misano, where testing went pretty well, here I’ve had some problems. I don’t know, maybe I’ve lost some of the confidence I had in Misano. We’ve made modifications during the weekend but perhaps I haven’t been able to interpret them properly. The team has worked well and I hope we can find a better set-up with which we can improve our results in the next races.”

Team SBK Ducati Alstare