Yamaha Superbike Temple: inaugurated the Yamaha Superbike section within the Poggi collection

Yamaha Superbike Temple – from Wednesday 27 April, the Moto Poggi Collection – COMP, one of the richest and most astonishing private motorcycle collections, hosts a section dedicated to the Superbikes of the brand with the three tuning forks.
The Imola round of the Superbike World Championship is the right occasion for the inauguration of such a particular section of the Collection which contains the most important Iwata series derivatives, starting from 1988 with the FZ750 di Fabrizio Pirovano who finished 2nd in the World Championship.

The exhibition continues with the version - again by Pirovano and always 2nd at the end of the year - from 1990, and with various motorcycles by Noriyuki Haga among which the iconic one stands out YZF-R7 of 2000 with which he finished 2nd. The Japanese rider remained with Yamaha until 2008, following the entire evolution of this class, contributing to the birth of the YZF-R1. The 2009 versions of this last model are present, World Champion with Ben Spies; 2010 by Cal Crutchlow and 2011 by Marco Melandri.
Place of honor, in the center of the room, for the brand new ones R1 who returned to the World Cup, thanks to Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team 2016, of alex lowes e Sylvain Guintoli, both present for the ribbon cutting.

The presentation began with Pierluigi Poggi who did the honors by going on stage together with several “Yamaha Legends” like the former pilots of the three tuning forks brand Marco Melandri e Luca Cadalora and the former Superbike Team Manager Massimo Meregalli, who now holds the same role in MotoGP with Valentino Rossi.

“2011 was a fantastic year also on a human level – the words of Marco Melandri – I found a group of people who made me have fun and feel good. I liked the bike a lot, especially for the character of its powerful and linear engine. One of the best moments was certainly the Donington race, the second test of the season, which I arrived at after 2 disappointing years in MotoGP, and where I managed to win race 1 and take second in race 2. The most difficult moment was Imola where, due to the width of the engine, I scraped on the curbs until I fell during practice, which made me lose confidence."

“When MotoGP was born in 2001 – he explained Massimo Meregalli – Yamaha decided to officially withdraw. After four years, in which we continued to race in Supersport with Yamaha Italia, we managed to convince Yamaha Motor Europe to return to Superbike. In England, Furusawa was also impressed by the results and since then the Japanese support increased until 2009, the year in which this effort allowed us to win the World Cup."

“Every now and then it's always a great pleasure to get back on track – he continued Luca Cadalora. Then now that we have this new R1 I was able to savor the speed again. After riding the prototypes, when I got on a production derivative I perceived the enormous development work that was carried out to transfer the technology from the MotoGP M1 into the road R1 which is available to everyone; and this is a great advantage for those who are passionate about motorbikes."

“For me – he concluded alex lowes – the new bike is fantastic and this weekend in Imola we will try to take a further step in competitiveness to try to get as far ahead as possible."