Team Althea returns home dissatisfied with the double DNF in race 1 due to technical issues. On the race grid, the two riders Matteo Baiocco and Niccolò Canepa suffered the same mechanical problem off the line. Both were forced to retire immediately due to the jamming of the clutch of both bikes. The team has never suffered such a problem before and so the technicians and engineer s are working to understand the cause.

In race 2 the team decided to change many of the bikes’ components and the two Team Althea riders took to the grid anxious to bring home a strong result. Canepa, having made a good start that saw him battle for fifth place, had to deal with the onset of rain which made an appearance in all sectors and which strongly affected his race. After scoring zero points in race 1, the Genoan rider preferred to play safe and bring home important points, closing in final eighth place.

Baiocco surely suffered as a result of his inexperience at this track and the lack of kilometres clocked up contributed to the race 1 stop. He found himself in a complicated situation when rain appeared unexpectedly and his only aim at that point was to complete the race as best he could. In the end he did not complete exactly the race that he and his Team had hoped for but that’s the way it went today. He crossed the line in thirteenth position. Baiocco and his bike still have eight more races in which to express their potential, having seen highs and lows during the season thus far.

Round ten will take place on 2 August 2015 at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia.

Niccolò Canepa: “I’m so sorry I didn’t achieve the expected result, considering the positive times set during the practices. Unfortunately we had a technical problem in race 1 while in race 2 track conditions changes compared to yesterday and it wasn’t easy to adapt to running the opening laps in the rain, so we suffered there. We’ve worked well this weekend and we had the pace but unfortunately some things happened that we had little control over. Now we look ahead to the next race.”

Matteo Baiocco: “It’s really a pity that we couldn’t complete the warm-up in the dry and we didn’t need the technical stop in race 1 as it would have given us the chance to set a few things on the bike that I hadn’t previously had the opportunity to do. In race 2 we made some changes that I didn’t like and I really struggled. I finished the race though, trying to score some more championship points. Now we have to prepare well for Sepang so that we arrive there with clearer ideas.”