Andrea Iannone: “My target is a little bit more than this”

Andrea Iannone arrived at yet another new circuit in his debut WorldSBK season at Portimao, ending the weekend with a fourth position in Race 2.

Iannone’s weekend started out badly, with a crash in FP1. That set him off on the back foot, and he qualified down in 15th. A crash in Race 1 continued the bad form of the weekend for the Italian.

“It was a stupid crash,” Iannone told WorldSBK.com after Race 2 in Portimao, “because I didn’t push more, I enter with 2kph more [than usual] in the middle of the corner, and I lost the front. It’s difficult, the first corner here: I touched a bump, and I lost the front.”

But a strong Superpole Race on Sunday afternoon meant he started Sunday evening’s Race 2 from ninth place. From there, he moved forwards to eventually finish fourth.

“We are always struggling a little bit to recover positions, because we start from 15th position,” Iannone said. “But today I think we recover a little bit, I started well in the second race and have a good pace for all the race, and we are really close to the top riders, the factory bikes. When we are close this year it’s a good result for us.

"For sure, I want more, because for me my target is a little bit more than this. But, in any case, today we achieve a good result with the package we have, so not bad."

For Iannone, a part of his improvement on Sunday compared to Friday and Saturday was about him learning the layout in Portimao.

“Day by day I learned the track, and this is important because it’s a really technical track,” he said. “It’s not easy: the references here are really difficult to take.”

It’s not the first time learning a new circuit this year for Iannone, who was out of action for four years prior to 2024 and is in his debut campaign in WorldSBK.

“The good thing is that this year there are many first times for me,” Iannone said. “It’s the first time on a Superbike, first time with Pirelli, first time in some tracks, and it’s not bad. For sure, I struggle, but in Most I struggle on the first day but in the end we achieved a podium and [in Portimao] we made a really good recovery in Race 2.”

There will be more learning for Iannone to do at the next race in France, as the Circuit Nevers Magny-Cours is another that he is yet to race on.