Christian Iddon scored an impressive and hard-earned 13th place finish at the fourth round of the World Supersport Championship at Monza, Italy.
Having qualified down in 26th, Iddon had just ten laps to fight his way through the field and claim his second points scoring finish in as many rounds.
Historic Monza is yet another circuit on which Iddon is racing for the first time in 2013. The ParkinGO MV Agusta Corse team could have done without Friday’s wet track conditions, as they lost valuable setup time with their new F3 675 machines. Iddon went well in the challenging conditions and ended the opening qualifying session 12th.
The weather improved on Saturday but an electrical issue hampered both Iddon’s chance to learn the circuit and efforts to set-up the MV for the high speed track. The issue caused Iddon to miss much of the second qualifier and left him a lowly 26th on the grid.
Sunday’s race was red-flagged shortly into each of the first three attempted starts, after early crashes forced stoppages. Eventually, the race was postponed until after the second of the afternoon’s Superbike races and shortened to just 10 laps, from the original 16.
Having made fantastic starts on each of the aborted races, Iddon was once again able to get his MV off the line well. He managed to move up to 19th during the early exchanges. As the field settled, Iddon began to utilise the slipstream advantage down Monza’s long straights, working his way trough the field. His impressive charge saw him finish in a very creditable 13th, earning him more valuable World Championship points.
“It was a great race and, all things considered, a great result too,” he said. “Although we were not as high up as we might hope, we salvaged a good result from a challenging weekend. Friday was wet so things went alright and we showed some pace but ultimately there was nothing to gained, as from then on it stayed dry.
“Saturday morning was my first dry session, so I was learning the track. We had a slight technical glitch which made it tough to do consistent laps. I started qualifying with an old tyre and did a few steady laps until an electrical fault ended our chances. The team tried to fix it and I went out again with 10 mins to go but unfortunately I still had problems. Morning warm up was the first good dry session. I just tried to be consistent and, from that, the team set about analysing the data and finding a good setting for the race.
“The race was never going to be easy from 26th but my starts have been good this year, so I felt confident that I could make up some places early on. It was a crazy situation with 4 starts but I managed to get away well every time. The one which ran the distance happened to be my worst start of the lot but I still came around in 19th. I made a mistake on lap 2 and lost 3 places but after that I settled down into a really good rhythm and started to move forwards.
“We knew it would be a tough weekend but we really have taken a big step forward in terms of the bike development. We’ve also got a couple of things which we will take to Donington.
“I am really looking forward to going to Donington, it’s my local track so hopefully I will have a lot of support. The ParkinGO MV Agusta Corse team have all been boosted by the last couple of results, so we are confident that we can continuing to push things forward.”
