Double top ten for Team HRC in race 1 at Portimão
Autódromo Internacional do AlgarveTeam HRC riders Xavi Vierge and Iker Lecuona were on track at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve today for the first of the races making up round eleven of the 2023 Superbike World Championship
Team HRC riders Xavi Vierge and Iker Lecuona were on track at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve today for the first of the races making up round eleven of the 2023 Superbike World Championship
A constructive final morning practice saw both riders continue to work with their respective technicians. Both Lecuona and Vierge were able to improve by almost a second on their best time of yesterday and both riders were feeling confident as to their chances as they prepared for the subsequent Superpole.
Said Superpole session ran according to schedule and again in dry, sunny conditions. Lecuona and Vierge wasted no time, with both immediately able to improve on their practice times. Iker ultimately placed a strong fifth with a time of 1’40.133, securing a very useful and positive second row start for race 1. With two minutes to go, team-mate Vierge unfortunately suffered a crash through turn 13. Though unhurt, the incident meant he had no time to further improve on his time, thus qualifying in thirteenth position thanks to a 1’40.453 set earlier in the session.
The Team HRC riders were back out in the early afternoon for the first of the weekend’s 20-lap Superbike races. From fifth on the grid, Lecuona was lying eighth one lap in, while Vierge maintained his starting position, placing thirteenth through the opening stages. Each quickly gained a position while working to get into their rhythm around the technical Portuguese track. Lying eighth and tenth respectively at the mid-race point, Iker and Xavi maintained consistent pace very similar to that of the riders they were fighting against, which therefore meant that they were unable to progress further in terms of their positions. Lecuona nevertheless crossed the line a solid eighth, closely followed by Vierge, tenth.
Lecuona and Vierge will return to work tomorrow, lining up for the 10-lap Superpole race and the second and final Superbike race.
All in all, we’ve had a good day, to be honest. A good qualifying, in which we were a little on the limit, but ultimately just half a second down on Johnny’s pole time. So we’re happy with our performance there. As for the race, well, conditions were a bit crazy, I mean, trickier than at Aragón, with a lot of wind and also very high temperatures. We normally suffer a lot in the heat but today I was very surprised with how strong our race pace was. I didn’t make the best start perhaps but was comfortably sticking with the guys ahead when, on lap three, Rinaldi made an aggressive pass through turn eight and I lost almost a second and a half there. Lapping with very similar pace to the riders in my group, I basically wasn’t able to progress too much in terms of position. But I’m happy with how the race went, with the pace we were able to keep, and with the work we’ve completed in the garage because it’s the first time I’ve been able to maintain strong pace until the end of the race in hot conditions, which is a good step for us.
We can’t be happy with a tenth place finish of course, but we kind of “saved” the day. Right from the first session on Friday it seems as if everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. But we worked well as a team, keeping our concentration and maintaining a cool head. In this way, we were able to make the right decisions and overcome the difficulties. And the feeling on the bike in today’s race wasn’t so bad in the end, we were missing a little something perhaps but not so much. I also want to thank the team because they repaired the bike extremely quickly after the crash in qualifying and everything was perfect for the race. We will work this afternoon to try and find this little something we are missing in order to run better races tomorrow.
