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Andrea Iannone's first-ever race at Magny-Cours ended with a top 5 finish. Although the rain gave him several headaches, the Go Eleven team rider did not let the adverse weather sink him, and he managed to recover from 14th place on the grid to 5th overall, despite some problems with the helmet used in the race.
"When my crew chief and I saw the situation this morning, we didn't know what set-up to use, because I had only used rain tires once in Assen, but without touching the bike set-up much. I had only tested the tires. I had never ridden on this track in the dry, let alone in the wet, so I didn't know what would happen today. In any case, I think we got a good result," said the Abruzzo rider, summing up his Saturday.
It was a day in which the rain played it up as much in the morning as during Race 1, complicating things quite a bit for Iannone.
"Unfortunately I struggled with the helmet, because I didn't change it. I was sure I would face the race with slicks, so I went to the grid with a dry helmet. When I restarted after the tire change I could see everything foggy, because with the protectors on the dry one there was no air circulation, the visor was fogged up, and it was a disaster, I kept opening and closing it, I was in apnea. In the end, we still finished the race in the Top 5," he recounted, "Before coming here I was hoping for a normal weekend, because I could have learned the track better and it would have been easier. In the end, it's never easy for me and the team, and we had to struggle again this weekend and fight to make up positions and get a good result in the race. We'll see tomorrow."
Although the competition in the dry is looking even fiercer than in the wet, The Maniac is convinced that he can have his say even in these kinds of conditions.
"I think we would have had a good chance this morning in qualifying in the dry, but today we started as I said before: without having anything but the standard set-up. We improvised and it went the way it went. What matters in the end is the result and today we finished the race quite well - he noted - If tomorrow we don't finish in a lousy position in the Superpole Race, I think we will have a good chance in Race 2 to fight for the top five places as well, even in normal conditions. I believe in it because the feeling is good and tomorrow I will definitely have learned the track better."
The Ducati rider then gave his opinion on the safety of the French track, which has been the subject of some criticism since the terrifying accident suffered by Toprak Razgatlioglu.
"I think there are many tracks where we are on the limit, but this is what we have and we have to race in these conditions. Also because I think we have worse tracks than this, where we race anyway," Iannone commented, "I think the level of Superbike is not comparable with MotoGP, which is the Champions League. Here we are a little bit lower in everything. We have to try to improve the situation but we can't always hope to race on the tracks where MotoGP races."
