Marino and Tamburini Storm the Aragon STK1000 Podium

2017-04-03 10:15
The opening round of the Superstock 1000 FIM European Championship, held at Motorland Aragon on Sunday 2nd April, saw Pata Yamaha Official STK1000 riders Florian Marino and Roberto Tamburini score strongly inside the top three at the first time of asking. Marino was a confident second and Tamburini a determined third on their close-to-showroom model YZF-R1M machines.

After the traditional style one-session qualifying session on Saturday 1st April Marino lined up fifth on the grid and Tamburini sixth, already in the vanguard in a field of over 30 machines from six different manufacturers.

The 13-lap race itself, the final main event on the weekend race card, saw eventual race winner Michael Ruben Rinaldi take an early lead, followed by eventual faller Max Scheib. Behind, Marino was fourth on lap one, got relegated to fifth, but moved up to third after passing Mike Jones and Toprak Razgatlioglu. The young Frenchman was lifted up to second on lap seven after Scheib crashed out, holding the position to the line and was just 3.587 seconds from first. It was a popular and highly rewarding return to racing for a rider who has been dogged by injury in recent times.

It was a fight to the flag all the way for Tamburini, who was down in eighth place after lap one but got into podium contention with two laps to go. He won a thrilling personal last lap passing battle with Toprak Razgatlioglu on the very last corner, as he took an ideal line and forced his rival to try and re-pass on too tight a line. Tamburini, three times a winner in this class, signed off the opening race of the year in third by an eventual clear margin and made it an almost perfect end to race day for his team, with both their riders on the podium.

This being the first round of the championship, Marino and Tamburini enter the next round in Assen in second and third place in the points standings, with 20 and 16 points respectively.

Untitled Florian Marino
"We had good winter tests so I was ready for this race. The weekend as a whole did not go as I expected, I had expected to be a bit faster. At some stages I struggled a little bit with set-up but anyway when it came to the race I stayed calm, and did not make too many mistakes. It is good to be back in this championship, to be back racing and to finish on the podium."
Untitled Roberto Tamburini
Pata Yamaha Official STK1000 Team

"I was eighth on lap one after not such a good start so I had to push a lot to recover the gap. During the race I had some problems when entering corners with the brake applied but this podium is fantastic. Thanks to all the team and now we will work on the bike settings to be even more competitive. This was a good start to our season."

Source: Yamaha Motor Europe N.V.

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