World Supersport's Russian newcomers RivaMoto have started to make real progress since the middle of the season, thanks also to the arrival of former 500cc rider Jeremy McWilliams as consultant to the team. At the start of the year the main goal was to successfully qualify at as many tracks as possible, and with this aim now achieved the team can now look back with some satisfaction. As Andrey Ivanov, the man who heads Riva Moto, explains, the team has made major progress since Misano.

"I look at what we've achieved since the Misano race," said Ivanov. "Our development has not been evolutionary but revolutionary. Our structure has gradually changed, and now to me it looks very professional. I am sure we are able to work together productively for many years. Our mechanics and engineers work exactly like the other guys in the WSBK paddock. For the first time I feel that we are able to work at a very high and professional level, producing good results. And for sure Jeremy helped us a lot. He is our trainer and consultant and we feel improvement since he joined us. It would be difficult not to underestimate his role in our team. He is very experienced and a great professional. Jeremy understands perfectly all the points and technical things and he shares with us his knowledge. We are happy to work together and we hope that we will continue to do it in the next season".


Rider Eduard Blokhin, whose best result this season is a 20th place at Aragon, said: "Now we feel much more confident and our feelings have turned positive because step by step we have achieved our goal. In the current season this means successful qualifying especially at a few tracks which are very new for us. In the beginning of the year we had a lot of doubts that we can show any progress compared to last year. But now we have Jeremy with us, and he has developed a big training program. He is a great person and we are happy that there is an opportunity to work together with such a professional. We're still waiting for the results but at the moment we consider this season as a preparation to the next one".


Jeremy McWilliams added: "RivaMoto is a small but very solid team and it's a pleasure to work with them. Now the guys have made progress and they began to understand that qualifying at each track is achievable. At the start their body language showed that they didn't believe they were able to get any good results. But now our expectations are even higher than before. We have already achieved something, so we are moving in the right direction and focusing on new and higher aims".