A solid start for Dixon and Chantra on Friday at Cremona
Cremona CircuitHonda HRC makes an encouraging start to the Italian WorldSBK weekend.
The factory Honda HRC team is on track at Italy’s Cremona Circuit for the tenth Superbike World Championship round of the 2026 season. Friday morning brought the weekend’s first free practice, which ran in relatively cool, cloudy conditions (air temp. 20°C, track temp. 23°C). Rookie SBK riders Jake Dixon and Somkiat Chantra tested at this same track two weeks ago, which gave them a base on which to build on this first day of action. In the early stages of FP1, Dixon already put in some strong lap times, which put him inside the top ten. Slight improvement in terms of lap time came in the final stages, with Jake placing an encouraging twelfth (1’29.254). On the other side of the garage, teammate Chantra experienced a more challenging start to the day. Not entirely comfortable with some of the setup changes tested during the morning session, the Thai rider worked with his technicians to find better feeling with the bike, finishing the session in nineteenth position with a time of 1’29.823.
The factory team was back out at 3pm CET for a second practice, which took place in warmer conditions, with air and track temperatures reaching 25°C and 30°C respectively. Following a short red-flag interruption in the first few minutes, Dixon and Chantra got straight down to work. Running inside the top twelve during the first half of the session, Jake set a series of consistently fast times in the latter stages. His best lap of the afternoon, completed in 1’29.217, assured him of fourteenth position in the day’s combined standings, despite a small crash in the closing stages of the session. Having made a few modifications to his CBR1000RR-R prior to this second phase, Somkiat was immediately able to lower his earlier time by a good half second. Using the remainder of the session to work predominantly on race pace, the Thai rider completed day one with the seventeenth fastest time overall (1’29.365).
Saturday’s schedule will see Dixon and Chantra on track for a final free practice, followed by Superpole and the first of the weekend’s 23-lap SBK races.
“We tried some things on the bike this afternoon and they didn’t necessarily go the way we expected, but that’s all part of it. We lacked those couple of tenths that would have put us inside the top ten, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow. It was a bit of a shame to end the session with a crash. It was a small one but apologies to the team for causing quite some damage on the bike. I’ll be sure to make it up to them tomorrow with a good qualifying and some good racing.”
“We tried some things on the bike this afternoon and they didn’t necessarily go the way we expected, but that’s all part of it. We lacked those couple of tenths that would have put us inside the top ten, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow. It was a bit of a shame to end the session with a crash. It was a small one but apologies to the team for causing quite some damage on the bike. I’ll be sure to make it up to them tomorrow with a good qualifying and some good racing.”
“We’ve completed day one at Cremona. This morning I had a few difficulties because we tried some setup changes, but they didn’t bring the expected results. I struggled with some chatter on the bike. In the afternoon we tried to fix that, and the lap time immediately improved a lot. I could ride more comfortably, and it was easier to set the lap time. We made quite a few laps in the afternoon, and the times kept getting better. I was also able to stay in the 1’29s. Hopefully tomorrow we can see a 1’28.”
“We’ve completed day one at Cremona. This morning I had a few difficulties because we tried some setup changes, but they didn’t bring the expected results. I struggled with some chatter on the bike. In the afternoon we tried to fix that, and the lap time immediately improved a lot. I could ride more comfortably, and it was easier to set the lap time. We made quite a few laps in the afternoon, and the times kept getting better. I was also able to stay in the 1’29s. Hopefully tomorrow we can see a 1’28.”
