Sandro Cortese missed the podium slightly – Cresson 13th in Imola


Kallio Racing Team’s German rider Sandro Cortese finished fourth at the round five of the FIM Supersport World Championship that was held today in Italy. The Belgian rider Loris Cresson needed to settle for 13th place after suffering arm bumps.
Kallio Racing Team had all the possibilities to have both of their riders in high positions today at the Imola Circuit in Italy. Even if the weekend looked promising for both Sandro Cortese and Loris Cresson the result was not in the end what the team was aiming for.
Cortese who started from the ninth place of the grid had a good pace and he managed to fight in the top. However, he missed the podium slightly while French Jules Cluzel took the victory and Italian duo Federico Caricasulo and Raffaele De Rosa joined him to the podium.
Cresson made an incredible start from the 16th place. The Belgian was fighting for the seventh place when the arm bump destroyed his race and he needed to settle for 13th place.
Cortese is now third in championship standing only four points behind the leader Randy Krummenacher and Cresson is 11th.
Sandro Cortese:
The race was good! I had a positive feeling all the time and a great fight for the victory. Of course I am a bit disappointed that I couldn´t reach the podium but I managed to close the gap in championship standing which is great.
Loris Cresson:
The weekend was in general good. We made a good progress with the bike and my riding. On Saturday morning I improved my lap time with 0.7 seconds from my Friday´s lap time. Unfortunately in qualifying I got stuck behind another rider so I couldn´t improve my lap time and I needed to settle for 16th place on the grid. At the race I had a good start, I was tenth at the first sector and then I went up to seventh. But after nine laps I started to feel a lot of pain in my arm and I lost the rhythm and several positions. Anyways I’m happy to finish 13th with some points and I showed again that my pace is in the top 10. Thanks to Kallio Racing and to Mika Kallio for their good advices!
Vesa Kallio:
This was quite unusual weekend. Both of the riders had good pace and in today morning´s warm up Sandro was the fastest. So, we had high expectations but then at the race something was missing. He was not able to do the final move and needed to settle for fourth position. Of course all in all this was a good result but you can´t be 100 % satisfied when there were all the chances to achieve the victory as well. Loris was improving the whole time during the weekend and he made incredible start. It looked good but the arm bump was bothering him a lot. He gained few points but he had chances to finish in 5th-6th position. So we can improve a lot but all in all we head to Donington Park with positive minds. We will be fighting for podium positions over there for sure.
The World Supersport championship returns in two weeks-time in Donington Park, UK.
Results: www.worldsbk.com/en/results%20statistics
Championship standing after 5 rounds

1. RANDY KRUMMENACHER 81 YAMAHA
2. LUCAS MAHIAS 79 YAMAHA
3. SANDRO CORTESE 77 YAMAHA
4. JULES CLUZEL 75 YAMAHA
5. FEDERICO CARICASULO 69 YAMAHA
6. RAFFAELE DE ROSA 51 MV AGUSTA
7. LUKE STAPLEFORD 45 TRIUMPH
8. NIKI TUULI 38 HONDA
9. ANTHONY WEST 27 KAWASAKI
10. THOMAS GRADINGER 22 YAMAHA
11. LORIS CRESSON 20 YAMAHA


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