Simoncelli not thinking about the title

Defending 250cc World Champion Marco Simoncelli got his fifth win of 2009 on Sunday in Portugal – his fourth victory in the last six rounds – and moved to within 28 points of championship leader Hiroshi Aoyama with three races remaining.

The Metis Gilera star has had an epic season, with injury and crashes hindering him, particularly early in the year, but aside from his recent home heartbreak at Misano he is in a good run of form – and still has a chance of retaining the 250cc crown before moving into MotoGP next season.

However, despite his latest triumph - which coupled with Aoyama’s second consecutive fourth place and Álvaro Bautista’s DNF, appearing to strengthen his position - Simoncelli is not getting over-excited. “It’s good to win, but I’m not thinking about the championship. Every time I do that I seem to make another error,” said the Italian.

“It was a good weekend in Portugal, despite the early problems I had. Things turned out ok, but when we were getting started I couldn’t get comfortable on the bike. I rode in a race at Imola on an Aprilia RSV4 during the break, so I had to re-adapt to my GP bike in the first session.”

He continued, “On Saturday I had another problem but we did manage to find a good setting in qualifying. The bike started to run really well and we made some more improvements in the warm-up. In the race I lost a few positions in the early laps but when I got going the bike responded really well and I was able to ride the way I wanted to. Once I got in front I tried to push to the maximum to get away from the pack and I was able to do it.”

Looking forward to the next round in Australia, where he won last season, Simoncelli remarked, “Next up is Phillip Island which I really like and I will have a smile on my face under the helmet when I’m riding there.”