After finishing on the podium in Saturday’s MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship Race 1 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, former MotoAmerica Superbike race winner and current GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team rider Garrett Gerloff was looking to keep the momentum going in Sunday morning’s Superpole Race and the afternoon’s Race 2. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as he hoped.
Gerloff finished tenth in the Superpole Race after losing positions early on in the sprint and then narrowly missing out on a top-nine result. Later in Race 2, he lost several places in the first-corner battles and dropped outside the top 15. The Texan began his charge back through the field, but his hopes were ended on lap 11 when he fell at Turn 1 and was unable to finish the race.
“Well, from one day to another, things changed a lot,” Gerloff said. “In the Superpole Race, the feeling wasn’t too bad, but I struggled a bit with the tires, and we couldn’t make it into the top nine. In Race 2, we went back to what we knew, but I got stuck at the beginning and eventually lost places. I tried to fight back, and the pace was not bad, but then, I crashed. I’m sorry to the team, but we’ll be back in Portimao to try and build on our encouraging pace.”
Gerloff and the GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team will be back in action in two weeks for the ninth round of the WorldSBK campaign at Autodromo do Algarve (Portimao) on October 7 through 9.
