World Supersport: Giombini a surprise standout at Phillip Island on Motozoo's MV Agusta

A fourth place that almost smells like victory. The Motozoo team and Andrea Giombini would never have imagined returning home from Australia with 13 points in the overall World Supersport standings. The MV Agustas seem to be struggling this year, and Giombini is essentially a rookie.

Life, however, often rewards those who are farsighted and have the courage to take risks. And so the 22-year-old Roman, Andrea Giombini, secured a result he would never have even dreamed of achieving on his World Championship debut as a full-time rider.

"We had a bit of a tough weekend," Team Principal Fabio Uccelli tells Corsedimoto — during testing we had two fairly big crashes. On top of that, we had a technical problem in FP1 that cost us about half the session. Andrea Giombini had no experience with the track or the bike, and that certainly didn’t help. In Race 2, as a team, we executed a perfect strategy. We studied the weather conditions, the wind, and decided to start on slicks. Our rider did very well considering he lacks international experience. We’re very happy: he rode in the wet on a bike he didn’t know, at a completely new circuit for him like Phillip Island. We’re very satisfied."

Andrea Giombini is beaming but keeps his feet on the ground.