Dixon and Chantra make progress on opening day at Donington
Donington Park CircuitLocal rider Dixon places just over one second from the top at the end of Friday’s practice sessions; Chantra lies twenty-second at a track he only visited for one test day prior to this round.
Honda HRC factory riders Jake Dixon and Somkiat Chantra have completed the first of the weekend’s WorldSBK practice sessions at Donington Park. They are joined on track this weekend by Jonathan Rea, who competes as a wildcard and is supported by the Honda HRC test team.
With high temperatures forecast for the weekend, Free Practice 1 already ran in very warm and sunny conditions. After a strong start to the session, local hero Dixon suffered an early setback after crashing at Turn 8 a little over ten minutes into FP1. Fortunately, the home rider was unhurt, but the incident meant that he lost a good part of this opening session. Unable to return to the track, he placed a temporary eighteenth thanks to the reference set prior to his crash (1’27.121). Teammate Chantra used the session to familiarise himself with what is a very challenging and technical layout, one at which he has never raced before. Making progress already during this first phase, Somkiat set a best time of 1’27.286.
Back on track mid-afternoon for FP2, Dixon was keen to make up for lost time. Making some setup adjustments to his CBR1000RR-R, the SBK rookie gradually improved on his lap times despite a much hotter track surface (43°C). By the end of day 1, the British rider had set a best of 1’26.608 to place sixteenth on the timesheets. Likewise, Chantra was able to find a little more during the afternoon session, dipping under the 1'27 barrier and putting in a best of 1’26.998 to position twenty-second in the day’s aggregate standings.
Competing as a wildcard entry with the support of the Honda HRC test team, test rider Jonathan Rea completed two very positive sessions, consistently improving his pace and taking another good step in the final stages of FP2. With a fastest time of 1’26.241, the six-time world champion positioned eleventh, 0.781 of a second from provisional pole.
"No physical consequences at all from the crash in FP1, but of course there is some disappointment with how the morning went. We lost a lot of track time, but I want to thank the team for their hard work in quickly repairing the bike. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way we're moving forward with the setup. Riding it, I feel like this is the first time we've made a good step, so I'm pretty happy about that. But let's try and make another step tomorrow morning and just keep chipping away. This is a weekend where we need to start building and then continue that work through the rest of the season, just trying to find our way with the bike. I'm happy enough for now."
"No physical consequences at all from the crash in FP1, but of course there is some disappointment with how the morning went. We lost a lot of track time, but I want to thank the team for their hard work in quickly repairing the bike. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way we're moving forward with the setup. Riding it, I feel like this is the first time we've made a good step, so I'm pretty happy about that. But let's try and make another step tomorrow morning and just keep chipping away. This is a weekend where we need to start building and then continue that work through the rest of the season, just trying to find our way with the bike. I'm happy enough for now."
"This was our first day on track at Donington and already it was slightly better than the test we had here a couple of weeks ago. Lap times gradually improved over the day, but we still need to improve a little bit, both myself in terms of riding and also in terms of bike setup. We'll keep pushing and hope to find the best setting tomorrow so that we can improve the lap time even more. For tomorrow, I hope we can find a bit more grip and that we can make it a bit more stable. If we can do that, then for sure we'll be able to make better”.
"This was our first day on track at Donington and already it was slightly better than the test we had here a couple of weeks ago. Lap times gradually improved over the day, but we still need to improve a little bit, both myself in terms of riding and also in terms of bike setup. We'll keep pushing and hope to find the best setting tomorrow so that we can improve the lap time even more. For tomorrow, I hope we can find a bit more grip and that we can make it a bit more stable. If we can do that, then for sure we'll be able to make better”.
