Brendan Roberts

www.brendan-roberts.com

Australian Brendan Roberts took his best result in dry condition today in the European series for the Ducati Xerox Junior team at Vallelunga Circuit, Italy. Roberts secured a strong fourth place at the penultimate round of the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup, running in a good third position for the majority of the race the young Australian was forced onto the gravel on the final lap by Ayrton Badovini, losing him an opportunity of a podium position.

Looking strong throughout the weekend and setting a stunningly fast lap times in the wet conditions during first practice on Friday, he was eager to making up for the disappointing result he got at Lausitz Eurospeedway Circuit a couple of weeks ago. A time of 1.42.645 in first qualifying saw him sitting in provisional fifth position for the race, despite a faster time in his second qualifying session of 1.41.412 he ended up in sixth position on the grid for the 13-lap race.

On the ultra fast technical circuit Roberts secured a good start, which saw him hold his position into the first corner. As the leading pack broke away Roberts matched their every move and was stuck on the back of them and was ensuring that they did not make a break and bridge too much of a gap. Riding almost pillion to his team-mate Nicola Canepa, he was determined to secure a podium results and was consistently setting fast lap times to be able to achieve that.

By lap seven Roberts was through to fourth place when race leader Mark Aitchison crashed out allowing Roberts to gain a position and a foot on the podium. Fighting hard and shadowing his team-mate he was looking extremely smooth and in control. Running slightly wide into one turn allowed Badovini to slip underneath him but the Italian forced Roberts to sit up through the gravel trap into the next turn. Staying on the throttle Roberts was eager to regain the podium place but lost too much time and had to settle for fourth. He now currently lies in ninth position in the overall Championship standings.

Commenting he said “I’m pretty pleased with the result today as it’s been one of my strongest results all year in the European Championship. The bike felt really good and we found a strong race set up early in the weekend, which certainly help progress things today. I felt comfortable from the start and just settled into a rhythm. I was staying in touch with the front runners and I’m disappointed that Ayrton sat up on me and forced me to run wide, I had no where to go and had to go across the gravel. Luckily I kept the 1098 upright and brought it home in fourth place. I’m hoping for a strong result at Magny Cours next weekend.”

The final round of the Championship is next weekend at Magny Cours, France, 5th – 7th October.

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www.carlyrathmell.com

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 6:24 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.