Andrea Iannone (Team GoEleven) continued to shine in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, even if the sun didn’t too much at the TT Circuit Assen. Fourth place in Race 2 was the highlight for ‘The Maniac’ during the Pirelli Dutch Round but his pace when the rain started to come down during that race was phenomenal, as the Italian hauled himself up the order to fight for the podium places.

With conditions all weekend inconsistent, even during races, it was hard for riders and teams to understand setups and tyres as they would have in a completely dry or completely wet weekend. Iannone’s Tissot Superpole result on Saturday was P9 – just over a second off the pace – with this his first visit to Assen in WorldSBK, and no prior testing at the venue unlike Phillip Island and Barcelona. Iannone showed strong pace in Race 1 before a Turn 3 crash forced him out of the race.

On Sunday, with the skies a little brighter for WorldSBK despite some rain hanging in the air, Iannone dropped to P15 in the Superpole Race before fighting back in Race 2. As he dropped outside of the top nine in Sunday morning’s race, he started from 11^th with Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Team Motocorsa Racing) taking tenth after he also fell out of the top nine. However, in mixed conditions as the rain fell in the second part of the race, Iannone surged through the field to claim fourth place.

Reflecting on his weekend, Iannone said: “It was a really strange weekend because the weather was crazy! In any case, we tried our best. On Saturday, we made a mistake unfortunately because we had really good potential. I thought we were better than Sunday. Saturday was important for Sunday because we learnt. I think we closed the round in a good way with a good feeling. In the Superpole Race, I destroyed the tyres immediately on the first lap, so in the second race we finished well and fought for the podium and victory. We are competing with the factory teams, this is good. We achieved a great result.”

The WorldSBK rookie was also asked about his feeling in the wet but drying track conditions, or when a small amount of rain was falling, with Iannone happy with how he performed in the challenging conditions despite still learning on his Panigale V4 R. He said: “My feeling was good, also on Saturday, with the half and half conditions, so the feeling with the bike is really good. Sometimes we feel a bit more inexperienced because we don’t have data like everybody, it’s my first year in WorldSBK and everything is new. We’re learning every day. We want and need to try to fight for victories. In the end, it’s important we always remember that this is my first year.”

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