Andrea Iannone is prepared to race in this weekend’s San Marino Grand Prix despite not feeling totally certain about his fitness. The Italian has been fighting for fitness since injuring his shoulder at the Sachsenring but is happy with the progress made since Silverstone two weeks ago and doesn’t expect Misano to provide the same challenge.
“I’m pretty satisfied with the physiotherapy I did at home the last few days, and I feel better. I have more resistance and less pain so my strength has increased. We did a good job. This track is definitely less physical than Silverstone and I did a test here almost a month ago, but let’s see how the weekend goes. I’m positive about it but will only be able to understand how I am physically in the next few days, even though yesterday we did a race with karts, and it was a kind of warm-up and rehearsal for tomorrow. As usual I will do my best and we’ll immediately try and do a good job in the box as we have done lately.”
Michele Pirro will stand in for Ben Spies once again on the other Pramac Ducati and is also feeling optimistic after overcoming his own injury problems.
“Here I will ride the ‘lab’ bike that I usually work with, and with which I have a better feeling. We also tested a lot on this track, at least seven days, for about 250 km per day. For sure it is a favourable circuit, we collected a lot of data but that does not mean too much. Now my shoulder does not hurt anymore, I worked on it a lot during this break, and tomorrow we’ll be on the track and we’ll try to do our best. Most likely this will be my last race with the team, because during the Aragon week and in the same period as the non-European races, I’ll be busy with the Test Team. If needed I can come back in Valencia.”
