Saturday

Tom Booth-Amos recovered to a points scoring thirteenth in race one of the FIM Supersport World Championship at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona, while teammate Ondrej Vostatek struggled to bounce back from a disappointing qualifying to finish twenty-second.

Tom Booth-Amos: “Not where we need or want to be. It’s strange because in testing we found a pretty good base with no problems so it is strange to have this problem and not be able to fix it. The lads have been working flat out so credit to them, but for some reason it’s not going and it’s one of those things you can’t ride around, especially in a race situation where you’ve got people everywhere.  We’ll  have to keep working and try some new things.  It’s a long season so we will keep trying.”

Ondrej Vostatek: “The first race of the weekend is behind us. You cannot make a miracle from P25 but I tried hard as I could to do some racing out there. I got into the wrong group and I struggled to overtake and there was a lot of sliding too. I don’t understand why last year I was able to feel good on the bike and attack top 10 and now it’s problem for me to overtake someone who last year was far behind. We need to find and fix something to get me back to the game.”

PTR Triumph Team Manager Simon Buckmaster: “Thirteenth is not where we want to be. In winter testing, the feeling was good and now in the heat of racing, the feeling is not so good. In the case of Tom, we are not finding the balance, the feedback to get the results we know we are all capable of.  In honesty, we need to go back to the balance we had in 2022/23 here which on the face of it could look like not the best direction but it is the obvious thing to do.  We’ve got a ten-minute warm up tomorrow. Tomorrow will be colder so everyone will end up running the same rear tyre. As a team, the guys are working hard and Tom and Ondrej are doing their best. It’s disappointing, we need to regroup and go out there and get the results.  Ondrej’s problems started from qualifying twenty-fifth and he was stuck in that group.  He needs to find the confidence to be able to overtake and move forward. That’s all we can work for tomorrow.  We have to do better in tomorrow’s race.”

Sunday

Day two of the FIM Supersport World Championship in Barcelona brought further disappointment for Tom Booth-Amos and Ondrej Vostatek with P15 and P26 finishes respectively.

The race was red-flagged after Piotr Biesiekirski crashed at turn one on lap seven of the 18-lap race.  Booth-Amos had been on the pace challenging in ninth when the race was stopped and the re-start grid was set on riders’ positions when the red flag was activated. 

The 28-year-old got off the line well again in the re-start but was mobbed in the first corner, and tumbled down the order to P17. With just six laps to turn his race around, the Brit had to settle for P15 and one Championship point.

Tom Booth-Amos: “A tricky weekend, I can’t fault the guys they’ve worked day and night trying to figure out what is going on with the bike but unfortunately we couldn’t get anywhere with it. In the first start I was doing alright, I felt really good but it got red flagged and in the re-start something changed dramatically.  I don’t know, maybe it was a faulty tyre or something. We need to look into it and move forward.”

Still constrained by his starting position on the ninth row of the grid for race two, Ondrej Vostatek lost ground at the start and was down to P28 at the stoppage which put him another row back for the re-start.  In a carbon copy of the first start, The Czech youngster lost time off the line but worked hard to gain positions and finished in P26.

Ondrej Vostatek: “So the second race is behind us. The main reason why the weekend wasn’t successful is that I was starting from P25. The race pace was good and it was similar to guys around top 10. Anyway we have a lot of work to do to be more competitive because it was somehow really difficult to overtake.  If we solve the problems that we have here, we can do some good racing in Assen.”

PTR Triumph Team Manager Simon Buckmaster: “The red flag didn’t work for us. A good start for Tom in the first one, battling inside the top ten.  He got off the line well but got duffed up and he was done from there really.  He got a point but it’s not what we are looking for.  You can see we made progress, we made a step, it’s just disappointing.  Really it’s the same for Ondrej who qualified in a bad position and in such a short race you have no opportunity to make up any ground. Disappointing for all the work the team put in but we made progress with Tom, the lap times were better.  We can only look to Assen. We have to be better, it’s as simple as that.”