The first round of the Coppa Italia championship did not go quite to plan for YAS Racing Team riders Yaser Salman and Manuel Tommasi. YAS 29 saw out a frustrating Friday practice only managing a best lap of 1m48s lap, over 1 second slower than he managed during his race simulation only 11 days prior where he consistently lapped in the 1m46s and 1m47s range, meanwhile Tommasi managed a best lap of 1m49s.
Saturday was forecast to be wet for the qualifying but the rain stayed away and YAS 29 secured a 2nd row start from 5th with best ever lap for ‘The Engineer’ at Vallelunga in an official qualifying session recording 1’47.203s in Q1 and further improving down to 1’46.622s in Q2 which was only 0.857s behind pole position. After a crash on the opening lap of Q1, Tommasi redeemed himself and brought smiles to the team in Q2 securing 7th on the starting grid with a 1’47.324s.
The rain did not hold out on race day and the race was declared to be wet by the cleric of the course, however the rain had stopped prior to the start of the race and it was very light prior to the riders lining up on the grid. Both riders YAS 29 and Tommasi opted to go with full wet setup, all the top 6 riders on the grid arrived after the sighting lap with wet tyres, however pole position setter decided to change to a dry weather rear tyre which proved to be the best option as he went on to win the race. Tommasi had a technical problem on the sighting lap with the front brake and had to be pulled off the starting grid.
YAS29 now the only team rider in the race got off to a great start and crossed the line after the 1st lap in 3rd position, he quickly made another pass to take over 2nd position on lap 2. Laps 3 and 4 he was commanding his position but he started to have problems with a misting visor. By lap 5 the problem was very evident and he was struggling to see with clear vision, meanwhile the track was drying and the RAIN tyres started to overheat and the bike became more and more difficult to ride and keep the same pace. These problems became more and more severe lap after lap and ‘The Engineer’ could do nothing and saw himself losing position after position to finally finish in 11th position overall, and 6th in the championship taking home 100points.
