After a four-year suspension, Andrea Iannone is less than a month away from returning to competition with the start of the World Superbike Championship (WSBK) season. This week, he participated in tests at Portimão as part of the preparations for 2024, which left him satisfied, maintaining ambitious goals.
The Go Eleven rider told the championship’s official website that he liked what he saw at the Algarve circuit, although he admits there is room for improvement: ‘In general, I don’t feel so bad. With race tyres, we are more or less there. We are quite fast. It’s possible to improve a little bit, and we have to, with race pace but the difficulty for me is the track. With a race bike, I’ve never ridden this track and it was really difficult because I didn’t have a reference. Every area is completely new’.
Nevertheless, Iannone gained more experience working with the team and found a rhythm on the bike. Anticipating his first season in WSBK, he stated: ‘It’s a good start. We don’t know what to expect but it’s important that we work well. I don’t want to have big expectations because we will have really difficult moments, but also the possibility of having really good moments. I think the target is high because we are here to have good results. Now is just the beginning and we need time to arrive at the top. In any case, we started with all our strength’.