Andreas Kofler (Yamaha): The results at Donington don’t tell the whole story

The eighth round of the Supersport World Championship took Andreas Kofler and the Motorsport Kofler team to the historic Donington Park circuit in England. It was the 21-year-old’s first time racing on the 3.2-kilometre circuit in Leicestershire, which has long been home to the Motorcycle World Championship and, on one occasion, Formula 1.

“All in all, we can be satisfied with the weekend, even if our race positions don’t quite reflect that,” remarked Kofler after finishing 26th and 24th. He was clearly more at ease on his Yamaha R9, having secured both his IDM titles on the previous model, the R6.

Lack of experience, a major disadvantage

“We were able to improve again from session to session, which underlines that we’re on the right track. We’ve finally got the set-up where it needs to be,” added Kofler. In the second race, Andreas managed to reduce the gap to winner Tom Booth-Amos (Triumph) by ten seconds, though there is still a long way to go before he can finish in the points. “That’s the goal for the future and, of course, I want to keep moving up the order. We’re the newcomers to the World Championship – me as a rider, but also the team – and we feel that extremely keenly on tracks like Donington, where, unlike almost all our rivals, we had zero experience,” explained the Upper Austrian, who is now heading into the summer break.

The championship still has four more rounds to go, resuming with the French round at Magny-Cours in early September. “We should be well-prepared with the set-up for the final part of the season; we’ll certainly be doing some more testing over the summer to build on our experience with the R9. I hope we’ll get closer to the points there. If it doesn’t work out this year, then it certainly will in 2027,” said Kofler optimistically.