Challenging Weekend for Team Yamaha MGM at Circuit Zolder

2015-05-18 17:36
Team Yamaha MGM made a promising start to the Superbike*IDM International German Championship weekend at Circuit Zolder with Max Neukirchner celebrating his third podium of the season and teammate Damian Cudlin achieving his second top five result in the first race. However, the race day in Belgium ended unsatisfactorily when technical issues interrupted the teammates' challenge for the top positions in the second race, resulting in two DNFs.

The weekend proved challenging not only because of Zolder's technical layout, but also due to the changeable weather conditions that kept the riders on their toes throughout the weekend.

Though rain spoiled the morning session qualifying on Saturday, Cudlin and Neukirchner took the opportunity to show their competitiveness in both the wet and the dry and secured first and second place on the grid respectively in the dry afternoon session.

Come race day the conditions had changed again. Having been on the pace with his YZF-R1M in the dry on Friday, Neukirchner had a strong start in race one in the Belgian sunshine. He only needed one lap to lead the field, but he got caught up in a battle with Markus Reiterberger and Xavi Fores and dropped back to third. The German caught up with Fores in the later stages of the race, but he wasn't able to pass the Spaniard and instead brought home a strong third place, his third of the season.

Similar to his teammate, Cudlin had a good start and come through in third place after completing the first lap in race one, but was unable to hold his position. The Australian put up an impressive fight with Lorenzo Lanzi, but eventually had to give in to take fifth position over the line.

The second race again saw the Team Yamaha MGM teammates contend at the front of the field, but their challenge for the podium finished prematurely when technical issues had them retire from the race and prevented them from scoring more top results.

The results of the second round see Neukirchner in fourth place in the overall standings with 56 points, while Cudlin holds seventh position with 24 points.

Team Yamaha MGM now looks forward to coming back even stronger in two weeks time when the third round of Superbike*IDM will form a part of the Deutsche Tourenwagen-Masters (DTM) schedule at the Lausitzring.

Max Neukirchner
Race 1 - 3th, Race 2 - DNF
"In the first race everything worked out quite well. I had a good start and was able to push pretty hard, but Reiterberger and Fores passed me as I was still a bit too slow. I kept pushing, but wasn't able to lap faster than them until at the end of the race. My rear tyre was still in a good condition, but unfortunately I wasn't able to pass Fores again. I had some small problems at the corner exit and needed to push all my weight to the front, but overall the race was ok. We knew what to do for the second run, but unfortunately we had a technical problem. Together with Yamaha we were able to find a really good setting in the wet and even made a step in the right direction with the electronic. We need to keep on working like that to improve further."

Damian Cudlin
Race 1 - 5th, Race 2 - DNF
"Obviously it was a disappointing race day for us, because the practices and qualifying had been so positive. The pole position was fantastic yesterday and Max was also in the front every time, so we expected a lot more from the race day. In the first race I made a big gamble with the suspension setting. I went in a different direction from Max, because I wanted to get the last bit that I was missing compared to him over the weekend in dry condition. However, it was the wrong way and my mistake. Fifth position in the first race is not where I wanted to be, but it was ok. For the second race I decided to go with the settings that the team suggested. I noticed immediately on the out lap that the feeling was good, but then we had a technical issues. It's a pity, but this is racing and we're booking progress all the time and I think that we learned something else again today."

Michael Galinski - Team Yamaha MGM Team Manager
"We never tested on this circuit before and in addition we had some really difficult weather conditions. In the rain we were really good and able to secure P1 and P2, which was really nice, but we didn't have enough dry time and were not able to find the best settings in these conditions. In race one we were happy with the third place, but we could've done a little bit better. In the second race we unfortunately had some technical issues, which we weren't able to solve in the short space of time that we were given. Regrettably both riders had the same problem, but we were able to learn much about the new bike this weekend and hope to be able to progress further at the next round."

Source: Yamaha Motor Europe N.V.

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