The Slovak motorcycle team Yamaha Maco Racing is mainly known from the attendance of the Endurance World Championship, but this year team is going to take part in the International Championship Alpe Adria. During the last weekend they attended the first event on the Adria International Raceway circuit and their rider Marko Jerman (SLO) was leaving as a leader ongoing evaluation of the royal class Superbike.
The Slovak team excellent set the new model of motorcycle Yamaha YZR R1 and with Jerman´s great race confirmed that with the Yamaha Maco Racing team support can think about top positions of the Championship Alpe Adria.
The first qualification and the first race this confirmed. Jerman´s performance was masterfull. However in the second Sunday´s qualification he had a crash and while the mechanics were preparing the bike, Marko strived to put himself in right physically. His start in the second race was uncertein. Neither fever nor concussion did not prevent him fight again for the victory which he finally did not reach because of the delay of overtaking the riders lap behind. But in the ongoing evaluation Marko stayed on the first position. The second rider of the Yamaha Maco Racing Team, the last year Slovak champion of the Superbike was Radoslav Dulik. This race was not only his premiere in the team Yamaha Maco Racing but his first start on the Yamaha bike, as well. In the first race he finished on the 11th position and in the second race on the 12th position.
Martin Kuzma, the team owner:
„In the both free practices we were working on the motorcycle basic setting for Marko Jerman. Of course, we had infomation from 24 hours race in Le Mans, but we had to set the bike for three riders there and in this case we could concetrate on Marko only. Everything run up to our assumptions what was confirmed in the first qualification. In this qualification he had placed the first place and after that he won the first race with the seven seconds lead. According to the collected dates we prepared bike for Sunday but during the second qualification Marko had the hard crash with the head injury. There were a lot of work for mechanics but finally we managed to prepare the bike on time. It was only up to Marko if he would had wanted to start. He decided to start and our aim was only to arrived to the finish. Finally he lost the first position during his fight with his rival due to the riders lap behind.
We are satisfied with this race and my thanks belong to Yamaha for the new bike, to Dunlop for their support, to all our partners, to our riders Marko Jerman and Radoslav Dulik and to whole our team for great job and to all our fans.“
