Garrett Gerloff lost rear brake in Cremona WorldSBK Race 2 Alex Lowes battle

A fourth place for Garrett Gerloff in Race 2 at the WorldSBK Italian Round last weekend was the result of strong late race pace.

The American rider started ninth, but it wasn’t until lap 12 that broke into the top five.

“The field is so deep right now and everybody is going so fast,” Gerloff explained when speaking to WorldSBK.com. “The beginning of these races are damn near impossible to go forwards, it feels like, unless you have some kind of big advantage.

“I started ninth after the Superpole Race, which was good, but the first [part of] the race is just fighting to stay in that train with everybody. But once the tyres dropped I started to feel better and better.

“The bike today was feeling really good, so I was able to make some passes and gain more confidence as the laps went on.”

Ultimately, Gerloff’s pace led him to a battle with Alex Lowes, who eventually beat for fourth place but not before he lost his rear brake.

“Finally, I caught Alex [Lowes], and as soon as I caught him, my rear brake lever came off, so that was not making things super-easy; it was not easy to ride without it because with the track temperature so high I just kept losing the front everywhere without the rear brake.

“It wasn’t the easiest race for me, but just happy that I was able to adapt a bit.”

Gerloff’s position meant he was the manufacturers’ points scorer for BMW as the German brand’s top-placed rider.

That is a position most often held this year by Toprak Razgatlioglu, the current championship leader, but with the Turkish rider absent through injury at Cremona it fell to the likes of Gerloff to aid in BMW’s bid to beat Ducati to this year’s Manufacturers’ World Championship.

“This is one of [Ducati’s] home rounds,” Gerloff said, “so they were going to be strong here, they’re always strong.

“I was looking at that [Manufacturers’] Championship a bit. I feel like I let them [BMW] down a bit, because I know we could’ve done a bit more, maybe.

“Just props to Toprak [Razgatlioglu], what he’s done this year is so impressive. We’re all trying our best to fill the void, but at least they didn’t lose as many points as they could have. I just want to be closer to the front, to the top three.”