Sandner Struggles In Italian Heat

The Hitachi KTM Fuelled by Milwaukee squad traveled to the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari at Imola for the Grand Prix of Italy, the 15^th event of the 19 round series. With long term injuries still affecting the team, it was left to recent signing Michael Sandner to represent the KTM UK backed team, and the Austrian was met by intense heat and a great crowd enjoying an extended festival period.

The track, built at the historic road racing circuit, was narrow and rough, making track positioning a crucial commodity throughout the weekend. Sandner struggled with his pace on Saturday, finding the conditions tough and the rhythm required hard to come by. Set-up was proving to be the issue, but with guidance from the team and WP Suspension Sandner started to progress. Mistakes in the qualifying race meant that a starting position of 30^th was all Sandner had to show for his efforts.

Sunday, however, saw Sandner’s fortunes improve. A good start was always going to be essential to a decent race position, and Saturday’s woes seemed to evaporate as soon as race one’s gate dropped. By the end of the first lap Sandner had forgotten his lowly qualifying position and had fought up to 12^th in a very busy opening lap. The next laps were equally as entertaining, but Sandner was losing more battles than he was winning, dropping down to 17^th by lap ten, when the Austrian compounded his position by jumping off track and having to make up lost ground. To finish 19^th was commendable in the laps left available.

Race two saw Sandner quick out of the gates, finishing lap one in 15^th, but after fighting around this position in the first few laps, making a few mistakes along the way, a hard crash forced his retirement and the end to a difficult weekend. Sandner sustained a rib injury that the Austrian will be wary of ahead of the next round in Sweden.

Michael Sandner, Hitachi KTM Fuelled by Milwaukee: “The whole weekend was very difficult for me to find a good flow on this very special track with so much special lines in every corner. In the qualification race I made two mistakes. This meant I did not have a good starting position for the races on Sunday. However, in race one I had a very good start and I fought for a long time for the places between 11-16. But towards the end of the race I came off line and jumped out of the track, so I lost some positions and finished in 19th. In race two I had also a very good start and I fought around 13^th and I was feeling good. But I crashed two times, so hard, and I had to end the race because of pain in the rib. Essentially, I made too many mistakes to achieve a better result. But I’m looking forward to Sweden the upcoming weekend."

Roger Magee; Team Manager Hitachi KTM Fuelled by Milwaukee; “Michael struggled on Saturday with set-up as he wanted to go with his own suspension settings, but it was soon obvious that this was totally the wrong direction as evident by his poor qualifying race. The Team with the WP Technician soon dialled in the bike for Sunday’s motos and he was running in the top 15 when a crash demoted him back to p25. With Michael’s proven determination he got back up to p19 for 2 World Championship points. In the deteriorating track conditions in race two, he made a number of errors and ended up with a DNF. The Team now will make its way to next weekend’s MXGP in Sweden where we will host the Milwaukee Trade Stand and the “Thunderbolt Challenge” in the paddock over the weekend."

Images: Ray Archer