Andrea and Suzuki have come a long way, after a more than difficult season, before bouncing back at the Japanese GP. Iannone arrived 19 points behind Jack Miller and Scott Redding, arriving at Sepang he was only 5 and 1 points behind respectively.
Motegi's fourth place, ahead of company President Toshihiro Suzuki, marked the start of the GSX-RR's performance renaissance, especially as Alex Rins finished fifth.
At Phillip Island, Iannone was third with two laps remaining, behind Marc Marquez et Johann zarco, but like the Frenchman he had a difficult end to the race with a very worn rear tire. Andrea was overtaken by Valentino Rossi, Maverick Vinales and Cal Crutchlow, which made him finish in sixth position, 3.8 behind winner Marc Marquez.
During testing at the start of the season at the end of January, Iannone had a very good performance at Sepang with the second time of the three days of testing, 0.084 behind Maverick Vinales' best time.
Andrea raced 5 times in Malaysia in 125s starting in 2005, with his best result being eighth place in 2009, on an Ongetta Team ISPA Aprilia. In Moto2, the best of his three attempts was crowned by a third place in 2010 on a Speed Up. He competed 3 times in MotoGP (in 2013 on Ducati Pramac, 2015 and 2016 on factory Ducati), but never finished.
According to Andrea Iannone, who are " After two good races, I am confident that we are going in the right direction. I am also very happy because Suzuki is working very hard to improve and now we are performing better. »
“In Australia I had fun and felt very fast on the bike. Unfortunately, at the end of the last laps the tire was worn and I couldn't keep my position against Crutchlow, but Sepang is a track we know very well. »
“During the pre-season we established a good rhythm there, but now the situation is different. The main issue here is heat and tire performance, but hopefully we can put it all together to have another good race."
To Davide Brivio, the team manager, “ The Sepang track is very different to Phillip Island, but we arrive here after two positive races, one in the wet and one in the dry, so we can be happy and have more confidence. »
“We are working hard to finalize some improvements we have made to the machine, as we really want to finish this season in the most positive way possible. Andrea and Alex both benefited from the confidence of the good results from Japan and Australia. I hope this helps us more. »
Provisional ranking of the World Championship:
1 MARQUEZ Marc SPA 269 points
2 DOVIZIOSO Andrea ITA 236
3 VIÑALES Maverick SPA 219
4 ROSSI Valentino ITA 188
5 PEDROSA Dani SPA 174
6 ZARCO Johann FRA 138
7 LORENZO Jorge SPA 117
8 PETRUCCI Danilo ITA 111
9 CRUTCHLOW Cal GBR 103
10 FOLGER Jonas GER 84
11 BAUTISTA Alvaro SPA 70
12 MILLER Jack AUS 65
13 ESPARGARO Aleix SPA 62
14 REDDING Scott GBR 61
15 IANNONE Andrea ITA 60
16 ESPARGARO Pol SPA 49
17 RINS Alex SPA 46
18 BAZ Loris FRA 45
19 ABRAHAM Karel CZE 30
20 RABAT Tito SPA 29
21 BARBERA Hector SPA 25
22 SMITH Bradley GBR 20
23 PIRRO Michele ITA 18
24 KALLIO Mika END 11
25 LOWES Sam GBR 5
26 NAKASUGA Katsuyuki JPN 4
27 GUINTOLI Sylvain FRA 1
28 TSUDA Takuya JPN 0
Classification by manufacturers:
1 HONDA 319 points
2 YAMAHA 285
3 DUCATI 278
4 SUZUKI 87
5 APRILIA 64
6 KTM 58
Team ranking:
1 REPSOL HONDA TEAM 443 points
2 MOVISTAR YAMAHA MOTOGP 407
3 DUCATI TEAM 353
4 MONSTER YAMAHA TECH 3 222
5 OCTO PRAMAC RACING 172
6 TEAM SUZUKI ECSTAR 107
7 LCR HONDA 103
8 PULL&BEAR ASPAR TEAM 100
9 EG 0,0 MARC VDS 94
10 REALE AVINTIA RACING 70
11 RED BULL KTM FACTORY RACING 69
12 APRILIA RACING TEAM GRESINI 67
Photo © Suzuki
