Kallio Racing is fighting for team and rider world championship silver on the rookie season

Team manager Vesa Kallio brought Kallio Racing in like a storm to the World Superbike series and World Supersport class, establishing the team as one of the top tier ones already on its rookie season.

Kallio Racing and its riders in World Supersport class South-African Sheridan Morais and Finnish Niki Tuuli were doing good work in Spain. Morais, the most consistent rider of the class scoring world championship points in every single race this season, was working hard with the team on getting the bike’s setup in place, and exactly like in France, he found the fast lap when it was needed the most. In Superpole2 qualification on Saturday he stopped the clocks to the third fastest lap time, taking another first row position in the starting grid. Tuuli was showing good pace throughout the weekend. He started to the race from the fourth row and 10^th grid position.

In the race both riders had a good start, Sheridan was taking the lead for the first turn and Niki secured his tenth position calmly navigating through the traffic. After few laps Morais started losing positions and dropped all the way down to 11^th by the mid-way of the race suffering from small riding mistakes and a challenging rear tyre choice. Tuuli did the opposite and made his way upwards taking rider and position at the time despite fighting with the front tyre throughout the race. Morais found the pace again with some 8 laps to go and picked riders before him one by one. He managed to climb up as far as sixth but the leading group of five riders had long gone, so Morais was riding to the checkered flag as sixth and gained 10 World championship points keeping him still to on the run for the 2^nd place in the world championships. Tuuli was seventh and secured critical 9 championship points for the team, keeping Kallio Racing still on the game for the 2^nd place in the championships.

Team manager Vesa Kallio’s comment: ”The result was not as we hoped it would, there is no denying that. We need lot more aggressive riding, especially in the beginning of the race, in Qatar. The tyre choices for today did not hit the target either, the weather was warming up faster than we expected, the choices for both riders were not right for that I’m afraid. We are still going after second place in world championship, both for the riders and teams, but those travels have just taken a turn to the rockier roads.”

Morais’ comment: “After a good start I made few mistakes and soon found out that my race pace was not good enough to go with the front. In the end I gained something with my tyre choice, but that was too late to fight for the top.”

Tuuli’s comment: “Too bad the weather warmed up so fast, we have had problems with front tyre all weekend. The riding felt good, but unfortunately it didn’t take further than this. In Qatar we will go fast again. Thanks for everyone for the hard work!”

Jerez race was the last of the season to the World Supersport 300 class and Kallio Racing’s young riders, Finnish Kimi Patova and Brazilian Renzo Ferreira.Fifteen and sixteen year olds have done good job and collected loads of valuable experience thoughout the season. The leaders of the class have been multiple seconds away and positions on the time sheets have not been much to mention, sure, but team manager Vesa Kallio sees lots of good in the season: “It was a new class for everyone, organizers, team and the riders, so experience and knowledge has been piling up on everyone during this season. As a team, we know now what to focus on and develop in during the winter. There is still lots of work to be done, as in a class like this where the differences are so small that to succeed one have to be solid performer throughout the whole season.”
In the grande finale for Patova ja Ferreira, they started from the 29th and 36^th starting grid positions. By the checkered flag both guys had climbed up many positions, Kimi landing 21^st and Renzo 29^th. Kimi did the best race of the season, no better way to end it! Well done guys!!!

Last race of the season in Qatar the 2^nd – 4^th of November.

Results World Supersport race, Jerez de la Frontera, Spain 22.10.2017