2014 World Superbike Championship
Round 8
Portimão, 4 – 6 July 2014
Varese, 6 July 2014 – Bad luck marred the MV Agusta Reparto Corse team’s efforts during this race weekend in Lusitania.
In the Superbike category Claudio Corti experienced a nasty fall during SP1 between corners 8 and 9 of the Portuguese track, the violent impact with the tarmac costing him a dose of concussion and some temporary amnesia. Preliminary X-rays carried out at the circuit showed there were no broken bones despite the rider experiencing acute wrist and leg pain. Corti had been clocking up
some good lap times and was just outside the top ten, a good sign, hopefully, of better things to come at Laguna Seca next weekend.
In the Supersport World Championship Jules Cluzel put in a good performance during qualifying and the initial stages of the race. The Frenchman was fighting for a place on the podium until three laps from the end when he ran off the track twice, taking him out of the points zone and making him opt for retirement. The gap separating him from championship leader van der Mark is now 53 points.
Wild card Massimo Roccoli finished in the top ten despite a fourth sector of the track that seemed to cause him one or two problems.
Jules Cluzel: “Despite the good start there were tyre problems almost straight away. We knew the Portimão track, with its ups and downs, was a complicated one, and that’s why we had trouble finding an optimal race setup.”
Massimo Roccoli: “At the weekend we made a lot of modifications to adapt my riding style to the tricky, winding Portimão track. Unfortunately, a couple or errors and runoffs saw me finish back in 10th place. After the excellent results achieved in the CIV (Italian Motorcycle Championship), I was delighted at being given the opportunity to compete in these two world championship races with the MV Agusta Reparto Corse team. It’s a pity I couldn’t thank the team properly by bringing home a better result.”
