PTR Triumph finish in the points at Portimao on Saturday

Just six days after his monster crash at Aragon, PTR Triumph’s Niki Tuuli was back in action to finish P9 in Race One of the 2023 FIM Supersport World Championship at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal today.

Still feeling the effects of his spectacular crash last weekend, 27-year-old Tuuli had to overcome a disappointing qualifying position on the fifth row of the grid to deliver a gutsy performance in the first race of the weekend at the roller-coaster circuit in Portimão.

Niki Tuuli: “Today in qualifying I felt really tired, I felt like my body was moving quite slow and in the morning I felt a little bit sick.  In qualifying I couldn’t really push for a fast lap time, I could make similar to what I made in the race but I couldn’t go faster. My starting position was really bad, in the race I didn’t make a good start but after I felt I came back quite good. I made some overtaking but at the same time made a couple of mistakes.  In the end without the mistakes I could have finished in the top six or seven.  Tomorrow I will try to ride without mistakes and the race will come a little bit better.  We will see tomorrow.”

Teammate Ondrej Vostatek again showed his potential and almost made it a double top ten result for the team with a mature ride to finish P12. The 19-year-old Czech rider just lost out to Tom Edwards and Lorenzo Dalla Porta in a close battle on the last lap of the 17-lap race.  

Ondrej Vostatek: “I think this race was really good. I felt really good on the bike I’m really happy with that, I trust the bike and the chassis. I feel a little bit disadvantage lap by lap especially in the end of the race where we are fighting as I lose a little bit on the exit of the corner.  This race is more progress and in race two I will do the best to be in P10.”

PTR Triumph Team Manager Simon Buckmaster: “Another really good performance from Ondrej, we are working with him to build his confidence and concentration and he is working so well with the team on that. He was so close to the top ten in a really good fight. He can be proud of that and we will build from here; he is just going to get better and better.  There were some mistakes in Niki’s race, obviously coming back from such a big crash but we can see the potential in the lap times to be fighting in the top five.  All we can do is work with him tomorrow to do the best we can for the best result.”

More progress for Vostatek in Portugal and P10 for Tuuli

PTR Triumph’s Ondrej Vostatek bagged another three Championship points in today’s Race Two of the 2023 FIM Supersport World Championship at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal finishing in thirteenth position.

Growing in confidence with each session, the young Czech rider made another step forward in pace was soon moving through the field hitting the points by lap 12 of the 17-lap race. Vostatek crossed the line in thirteenth only half a second off Tom Edwards and almost five seconds ahead of John McPhee in fourteenth.

Ondrej Vostatek: “This race I think the start was good, I overtook some people and I was really excited to make a really good result but then I made a mistake and some riders got in front of me.  Then I caught the group with Niki for the last seven laps but I didn’t find any place to overtake and it was really difficult to close the gap more to overtake.  Anyway the gap to the front was nineteen seconds which is really good and I believe if we improve the things that happened in race two we can fight for the top ten easily.”

Teammate Niki Tuuli finished tenth in the second race of the weekend which saw the top ten covered by only seventeen seconds.  The Finnish rider didn’t make any gains off the line in race two but recovered well to battle up to tenth at the chequered flag.

Niki Tuuli: “Today we tried to change the bike a little bit. This morning I felt quite good, like myself, much better than yesterday in qualifying. In the race, the warm up lap with the new tyre, I lost the rear twice and I didn’t know what was wrong because normally with the new tyre this doesn’t happen so then in the start I didn’t want to open, to take the risk to exit because it felt strange and I didn’t know what was wrong. After five laps I started to get better and the lap times were not so bad but it was too late.  I lost too much time in the first five or six laps so not happy. I feel tired mentally and physically so we will see next time.”

PTR Triumph Team Manager Simon Buckmaster: “Ondrej is just improving all the time, the discussions we have had I believe have worked really well, his focus and concentration is getting better every time. He has come such a long way in these last two rounds and of course, now it gets harder because we are looking for tenths not a second here we are looking for the little bits so we are going to have to keep working harder and harder. I’m proud of him, he is only 19-years old and he is making big steps. He is a pleasure to work with, congratulations to him and the whole team because we are a team that work together.”

“Niki said he had slides on the warm up lap but even after all that on lap 11, only the top three were faster than him.  The lap times he was doing are capable of top five and challenging for top three where we should be. He is still struggling to overtake, maybe after the big crash there are still some effects there but we can see the potential of the bike, which we already knew and it is confirmed to us all the time so from his boys as well, a fantastic job under difficult circumstances.  We don’t come here to finish tenth and I’m sorry for Niki that it’s just not coming together for him at the minute.”