Britain’s Graeme Gowland suffered a nightmare race at Vallelunga for the 11th round of the World Supersport Championship after positive practice and qualifying sessions.
Gowla ran in the top 10 in the wet sessions on the first day, after gaining confidence in the wet by competing in the Bol d’Or World Endurance race the previous weekend, and provisionally lined up 16th on the grid for Sundays 22 lap race.
Saturday saw improved weather conditions so the previous days qualifying times would be beaten. Gowla posted a time of 1'41.143 to qualify in 22nd but just one second off the top 6 on his Berry Racing Honda CBR600RR.
The race got underway and Gowla made a great start to move up to 17th but right from the word go he was struggling with rear grip and finding braking difficult which meant he was losing ground. Gowla pushed as hard as he could but unfortunately dropped down the order because of the issues and in the closing stages it looked as though he may need to retire as the engine developed a problem but he brought the bike home in 21st.
Graeme Gowland: “We made the wrong choice on the tyres and went for the harder B type but it had no grip throughout. I was also struggling braking into corners and the throttle was sticking on which we found out after the race was because the right-hand handlebar was loose and had moved forward trapping the throttle cables and the brake lever. Then with 6 laps to go the engine started to develop a problem which wouldn’t let it rev properly. I am really disappointed, I felt like we made good progress this weekend before the race and I thought we could make a good result but it wasn’t meant to be.”
Graeme now looks ahead to the penultimate round of the Championship at Magny Cours on 3rd- 5th October.
