Niccolo Canepa delays retirement for Italian WorldSBK call-up
Today at 06:52 AM
Niccolo Canepa will delay his retirement to replace Jonathan Rea at Cremona this weekend.
With Jonathan Rea missing the Italian World Superbike round he will be replaced by the recently retired, Niccolo Canepa. After completing the Endurance World Championship last week at the Bol d'Or Canepa was supposed to hang his leathers up.
This late call-up to race in WorldSBK for the first time since 2018 has forced Canepa to delay his retirement. Canepa has competed in 79 WorldSBK races between 2008 and 2018, with a best result of seventh.
The 36-year-old has been a key part of Yamaha's success in recent seasons. Canepa is a test rider for the Japanese manufacturer and has been a big part of their endurance racing success. Canepa has taken two world titles in EWC with Yamaha and narrowly missed out on a third in 2024
Discussing his last-minute call-up, Canepa said: "The news may come as a bit of a surprise since I announced my retirement a couple of weeks ago! But to be honest, I am really proud to do one more race weekend – especially with this team, Pata Prometeon Yamaha, Crescent and Yamaha's official R1 WorldSBK with this crew.
"I am really sorry for what happened with Jonathan, and I wish him a speedy recovery. On the other side I am thankful to Yamaha for this opportunity. It's always great to race for this team and to race for Yamaha in WorldSBK. Cremona is a track that I don't know so well, I just did a few laps one day with the Yamaha R7 for the WorldWCR shakedown and I am aware that it is going to be a challenging weekend in terms of performance.
"For my job as the WorldSBK test rider, we may have something to test and if I can give feedback to help the other Yamaha riders on track then it will be "mission accomplished". I am really happy and looking forward to the "very last" race weekend of my career now, so let's see what we can do!"
Canepa will complete an all-Italian lineup at Pata PROMETEON Yamaha this weekend as he links up with Andrea Locatelli.
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