Andrea Iannone admits “I stress people a lot” | World Superbikes

Andrea Iannone produced another brilliant recovery ride at the Czech WorldSBK round, after being caught up in the turn one incident between Danilo Petrucci and Alvaro Bautista.

Iannone was on the outside of the corner as Petrucci and Bautista crashed directly in front of him.

As a result Iannone had to go through the run-off at turn one, meaning he was towards the back of the field.

But Iannone responded well as he recovered to eighth, a day after returning to the podium in Race 1 for the first time since round two at Barcelona.

Iannone said: “I’m the king of recoveries! At Donington, I started all three races in 19th place because I had yellow flags during Superpole. 

“On Sunday morning, I had a problem with the clutch. I started really badly. In Race 2, at the first corner, there was a big crash, and I was in the middle. 

“I went straight on and lost everything. I recovered a lot. I’m happy for the results from the weekend but it was possible to achieve much more because we had the pace for the podium today. 

“Now, we’re halfway through the season, we’ll try to improve a little bit for Portimao, make a step race by race. Without the incident, we would’ve fought for the top three.”

But despite his impressive weekend, Iannone admits he’s still not where he wants to be.

“I’m not at 100% in every area,” said Iannone. “Thanks to my experience, it was possible to achieve this result (Race 1 podium) but it’s also possible to improve a lot; we have more potential, both me and the bike. 

“In any case, I’m happy as it’s not easy with it being my first time here. Last year, I watched the race from the sofa. 

“I think this was the most difficult race of my life; I didn’t know what to expect from this track, the distance but now I understand that my physical condition is not at 100%. 

“My arms, my back… I need to improve something but I start to recover the feeling. 

“Last year, I didn’t believe that I could do this comeback. I put 100%; sometimes, I stress the people a lot but I do everything for us. 

“Everyone needs to believe, anything is possible. We didn’t have data from last year here together so this podium has double value.” 

Iannone is yet to win on his comeback to world championship racing, although many on the current Superbike grid are struggling to win in 2024 due to Toprak Razgatlioglu’s stunning run of form.

But the GoEleven rider is hoping improvements in the second part of this season can take him closer to that achievement.

“Sometimes I’m a little bit surprised, because the races are like Saturday,” said the former MotoGP rider. 

“After a long time, it’s not easy. Everybody here wants to win. In the end, we’re a small team, we always do our best. 

“I’m quite happy. It’s possible to improve in many areas. This is our target. We try to improve for the second part of the season. 

“Portimao is a good track. I did a test because I’d never ridden there. It’s not easy.”