Andrea Iannone: "I don't feel inferior to Marquez"

2011 was another rollercoaster year of Moto2 rider Andrea Iannone.
The Italian showed some brilliant and aggressive riding, infact he was the only other rider besides Stefan Bradl and Marc Marquez to win more than one race (Jerez, Brno and Motegi) but he was highly inconsistent in qualifying, often having to take off from the starting grid outside the top ten and more often even outside the top fifteen, but he managed to finish third in the championship for the second year running, pipping Alex de Angelis for the spot in the final race of season.

Iannone was rumored to make the switch to MotoGP with SpeedMaster’s CRT team, instead decided to contest another season in Moto2, while the team will be fielding Anthony West in MotoGP.
In an interview with Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport, Iannone said, “Marc is definitely strong, but I do not feel inferior, I am ready to challenge him.
But I think it will be a two way fight for the title.

” I was very close to making the switch, but I have no regrets, I’m glad I’m staying Moto2.

I want to show all my potential, that I haven’t fully expressed.
You saw the real Iannone only when I didn’t have problems with the bike, and that rarely happened.
This year I really struggled to ride, even if the team tried to help me.
” SpeedMaster is run by Iannone’s father Regalino, and ‘Uccio’ Salucci and they’ve decided to take a step backwards and will be dropping Suter for a FTR chassis and have also changed his pit crew, hiring back his 2010 mechanics with Eros Braconi as his crewchief, as Tommaso Raponi will be following Anthony West.
“We want to aim for the title and the team has done everything to give me the mechanics and the bike I had two years ago, and they were successful and this is definitely positive.
Now we have to simply put their heads down and work.
”