BIERRETI Racing’s Trystan Finocchiaro is staying positive about his world stage debut despite crashing out of the race.
The Prosecco Doc German World Superbike round at the Lausitzring was the setting at which the Transmec Group-backed rider made his World Supersport 300 debut.
Powered by Kerax Hyperdrive Lubricants, the young Redditch talent became the new kid on the block and joined Alex Murley, Chris Taylor and Luke Hopkins to become one of four British riders in a 36-strong field.
After a promising test on the Friday, Saturday’s superpole session swiftly came around. Finocchiaro showed great potential but stated his qualifying lap of a 1.59.5 “was not representative of our (his and the team’s) capability”.
The 18-year-old was confident in stating 2greater things will come in the race”.
After a fumbled start off the line in Sunday’s race, Finocchiaro found himself rapidly climbing through the field, picking off rider after rider and determined to reach a points-scoring position.
However, disaster struck on lap three. As the teenager was attempting to undertake yet another rider, he found himself quickly approaching a rider in front.
This resulted in Finocchiaro braking “a lot harder than usual” on approach to turn four and, as any racer knows, too much front brake plus lean angle equals a faceful of gravel.
Finocchiaro believes that “qualifying was the biggest mistake”.
“If we had completed a proper qualifying lap I wouldn’t have had to climb up the order as quickly and I would have been around riders that were the same speed as me,” he concluded.
“Having to avoid slower riders at the beginning of the race was not ideal and was the reason I crashed.
“However, we showed great promise and I’m almost certain we would have climbed up very high by the end of the race.
“Our focus now is on (the next round in) Portimao and honestly I don’t see why I can’t leave Portugal with my first World Championship points.”
