Dessoy Secures Season Best Result with Second Place in Cremona
The FIM World Sportbike Championship got their penultimate round of the inaugural season underway this weekend at the Cremona circuit in Italy, as PHR Performance secured podium delight on Saturday with Harrison Dessoy.
WorldSpB action resumed this weekend to familiar territory for the CM Triumph Factory Racing Team and PHR Performance Triumph having completed private tests at the Italian venue during the summer break and saw the teams hit the ground running in opening practice on Friday.
Fine-tuning the setups of their Triumph Daytona 660s, attention quickly turned to Superpole which saw Seabright burst to a front row start with Dessoy lining up on row two. Bruno Ieraci and Elia Bartolini were set to start the opening race from 13th and 20th places respectively.
The opening race of the weekend delivered drama and delight for Triumph Motorcycles as Dessoy secured his career-best finish with a superb second place. Getting the opening race underway, it was a fiery start to the 12-lap Sportbike race as both Seabright and Dessoy made their presence felt amongst the leading group. Completing the opening tour with Seabright fourth and Dessoy seventh, the duo began moving forward with the Magny-Cours winner hitting the front on lap five.
Meanwhile, his teammate had elevated himself to fourth and was firmly in the podium fight, eventually putting his number 55 Daytona 660 machine into the podium places. From there, Dessoy continued his charge, taking the lead on the seventh circulation before a fierce battle commenced in the closing stages.
Starting the final lap in second and fourth, Dessoy looked for a way through on the race leader but defensive riding from his rival left no way through. Determined to get ahead, Dessoy tried to sneak his way ahead in the final sector but was to no avail, crossing the line second. Meanwhile, as the 21-year-old fought for the lead, Seabright was fighting for a place on the podium but despite muscling ahead at the final corner, was narrowly beaten to third by a mere 0.088 seconds.
CM Triumph Factory Racing endured a tricky opening race. Ieraci made a strong start and sat in the leading group but slipped back to 12th at the chequered flag. Teammate Bartolini held strong in 14th for the duration and picked up two World Championship points.
Today’s second race was bittersweet for the Triumph Daytona 660 runners. Aiming to back up his podium finish on Saturday, Dessoy made a strong start from eighth on the grid and was surging forwards before an incident ended his race. Meanwhile, Bartolini also crashed out of the points during the later stage of the race.
Seabright started strongly from third and settled in amongst the leading riders. Running fifth for the majority, he began his rise forward, putting himself back in podium contention - but in the midst of the last lap chaos, was muscled out to finish seventh at the flag.
CM Triumph Factory Racing’s Ieraci had a difficult start to the second race, slipping back as far as 21st. But the Emilia-Romagna race winner didn’t give up and climbed to 13th to secure three important points.
The inaugural season of the Sportbike World Championship comes to its climax on 18 October as the Championship embarks on its final round of the season at Circuito de Jerez Ángel Nieto.
Championship Standings (as of Round 7)
Harrison Dessoy - PHR Performance Triumph:
“It’s been a very good weekend in Cremona, especially Friday and Saturday. I had my best qualifying result of the year and then managed to lead a World Sportbike race for the first time. I was really happy with how I was riding and narrowly missed out on the win! Sunday’s result unfortunately wasn’t as good. I made a mistake at turn two on lap two and unfortunately despite correcting the error I had a collision with another rider which ended our race earlier than expected. Thank you to the entire PHR Performance team - we’ve taken good steps with both my riding and the set up of the bike and I’m looking forward to carrying that to the final round of the season.”
Fenton Seabright - PHR Performance Triumph:
"Positive weekend all-in-all at Cremona. It was a tricky Practice on Friday, but we managed to pull through in Qualifying and put it on the front row. Race one was good. We led the race and were at the front for the entire race, but finished fourth, which was a bit of a shame. I came out of the final corner in third but missed a gear on the run to the line and dropped to fourth. Race two today was a bit more difficult. I picked up a bit of a shoulder injury in testing, and today it was holding me back in some areas, but we gave it our all. We've taken more points and go to Jerez fifth in the standings."
Bruno Ieraci - CM Triumph Factory Racing:
“Cremona proved tougher than expected; unfortunately, we weren’t able to fulfil our potential. We’ve worked hard to find solutions, and in Race 2 we could have done well, but a collision on the first lap robbed us of the chance to prove it. I’d like to thank the team and Triumph for the weekend, and I’m determined to go to Jerez to show what we weren’t able to do here.”
Elia Bartolini - CM Triumph Factory Racing:
“This weekend’s racing at the Cremona Circuit has just come to an end. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as quick as I’d hoped; we worked hard with the team, but we couldn’t quite find the perfect balance. We kept improving lap after lap, but unfortunately we didn’t manage to close the gap on the leaders. In today’s race, unfortunately, I crashed due to a problem, putting an end to my bid for the top positions. I did manage to get back out on track, though, trying to gather useful data to help us improve ahead of the final round of the championship at Jerez.”
