Team Bimota Alstare at Motorland: The progress continues

The second day of the Motorland Aragon round of this year’s World Superbike Championship saw more progress by Team Bimota Alstare. Riders Ayrton Badovini and Christian Iddon carried on where they left off yesterday, working on getting to further understand the new Bimota BB3 and improving it in all areas.

So far, no major problems have surfaced and the whole team are delighted by the progress being made. The hard work continues though and Ayrton, Christian and the team will not be happy until the bike is fully competitive.

At the moment, Ayrton is just over two tenths of a second slower than the best EVO bike - encouraging news considering that today was only the second proper full day that the team have had with the bike.

Ayrton Badovini - 1:59.596, 15th overall, (4th EVO class): “To be fifteenth quickest in this competition, on a bike that is new and hasn’t done many laps at all, is pretty good. I am happy because we are close in the hunt, but I am not happy with the bike on the qualifying tyre. With the Q tyre, the front was pushing a lot and I couldn't go as hard as I wanted to. With the race tyre though, I have a good feeling with the bike and so I am looking forward to the races tomorrow.

For me, today was a good surprise and to be only two tenths slower than the best EVO bike is pretty amazing. I went faster (on the race tyre) today than last year! Once again, we had no particular problems except those you would expect with a new bike.”

Christian Iddon - 2:01.102, 18th overall, (6th EVO class): “My day began quite well , after a difficult start, took a bit of a downward turn later and ended with me being a little frustrated because I really thought I’d break into the 1:59s today. We had some small problems which prevented me from going faster. The bike was good in the fast turns, but I couldn’t get it to do what I wanted it to do out of the slow corners and that meant I could get into the 1:59s.

The bike’s chassis is fantastic and all the ingredients are good, so I think it’s just a matter of patience and hard work and I am connfident that we will get there. Today was the first time I’ve ever used a qualifying tyre and the bike feels different than when it is on race rubber. It’s something that I’m just going to have to get used to - and quickly! Where we are now far exceeds the expectations we had before the weekend began and it feels good to know that there substantial improvements to come.”

Francis Batta (Team Manager): “I am very satisfied with today and how things are going because this is really our first proper test of this new bike. The bike is very sound, the engine is very strong and today we had no big problems. There was a bit of difficulty with the qualifying tyres but this was our first time using them so there was a lot to learn and understand. At this stage, we’re making more progress than we thought and that has made our team spirit even stronger.

Bimota Engineer Acquaviva is here this weekend and also Bimota’s vice-President, Daniele Longoni. They have been able to see, at first hand, how Alstare have developed the bike and also what (small) difficulties we have experienced so far. I think that they are surprised how quickly the team are progressing and they are both eagerly looking forward to next stages of this bike’s progress.”

Team Bimota Alstare