Rinaldi fourth in Superpole, struggled in Race 1

Bittersweet Saturday for the Barni Racing Team at Nevers Magny Cours circuit, which held the eleventh round of the MOTUL FIM WorldSBK Championship. Michael Rinaldi hit a splendid fourth place in Superpole, the best qualifying of the season - on a wet track - but the race was below expectations and saw him crossed the finish line in 14th position. With this result the flagbearer of the team from Bergamo team gathered two points in the championship standings where he is now twelfth with 111 points.

Superpole

The weather conditions were protagonists also on Saturday: the rain that fell in the morning forced the riders to hit a wet track for the Superpole. Rinaldi once again was very good at exploiting this condition, scoring a lap in 1'54.563 which allowed him to take fourth place on the staring grid.

Race 1

The race instead took place on dry asphalt and the riders could race with slick tires. Starting from the second row the # 21 from Romagna had a good start but after a few turns he was moved down to 13th position.

Due to a poor feeling at the front he lost other positions up to 16º. From mid-race , when the asphalt temperature rose, Rinaldi significantly improved its pace, managing to lap in 1'40’’ of pace, cheating and overtaking Kyionari and Del Bianco.

Marco Barnabò - Team Principal

"The Superpole on the wet track went very well, the rider showed great sensitivity managing to place himself in the second row. In the race, unfortunately, the same situation that we had experienced in Assen occurred: on dry, but cold track, Michael had not the right feeling and he was not able to push as he would like. This heavily affected the race, especially in the first part where we accumulated much of the gap".

Michael Ruben Rinaldi #21 - SUPERPOLE: P4 - RACE 1: P14

"These results comes out due to some problems that we cannot solve from the beginning of the season. On one hand we can be competitive in the wet and today's qualification proved that, but in the dry we really struggle too much. I am very sorry and not being able to prove what I'm able to do do makes me very angry, but neither I nor the team are going to give up, we will do everything to find a solution, until the end".