Leandro Mercado enjoyed his best weekend of the season so far at Imola, qualifying a career-best seventh before picking up seventh and eighth position finishes in the pair of respective races. At the end of Sunday, the Argentinean thanked his team for a number of successfully improvements made since the previous round at Assen.

“I’m really happy with the weekend, very positive,” commented the Superstock 1000 Cup winner of 2014.

“In Race 1, I had a very good start and was behind Haslam. Then the red flag came out, so it was a little bit unlucky. I didn’t start as well at the restart as I had on the first. I tried to stay right behind Badovini and Guintoli but I made some mistakes and couldn’t pass them. Anyway, seventh position was still good.

“In Race 2, I touched with another rider and went off the track. I lost a lot of time and some positions and was really far from the riders in front of me. I had really good pace and started to catch the riders in front of me. I finished eighth but, anyway, I’m really happy about the weekend. We tried many new things and it was good; I think it is looking good for the future.”

Mercado’s next destination will be Donington Park; a track on which he and fellow competitors did not compete when racing in the Superstock 1000 category last year.