Lecuona a strong fifth and seventh at Portimão, Vierge ninth
Autódromo Internacional do AlgarveTeam HRC has concluded the eleventh and penultimate Superbike World Championship round at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve with a fifth and seventh place finish for rider Iker Lecuona in the day’s two races.
Team HRC has concluded the eleventh and penultimate Superbike World Championship round at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve with a fifth and seventh place finish for rider Iker Lecuona in the day’s two races. Xavi Vierge finished ninth in the Sprint race but was denied the chance to complete a strong race 2 after another rider made contact and caused him to crash.
The ten-lap Superpole race got underway mid-morning with Lecuona and Vierge starting from sixth and fourteenth on the grid respectively. Lecuona quickly moved up into fifth before passing Gardner to place fourth, while team-mate Xavi progressed to eighth on lap four, battling with Oettl through the central phase of the race. Lapping with the same pace as the rider in third place, Iker put together an impressive sprint race, ultimately crossing the line fifth and just three seconds from the podium. Xavi also ran a consistent race and was able to finish at the front of his particular group, concluding inside the top ten, in ninth position.
Their Superpole race results meant that Iker and Xavi lined up in fifth and ninth position on the grid for the final race of the weekend. Lecuona got away well and was lying sixth though the opening stages. Up to fifth just two laps later, Iker found himself in a group with Gardner and Gerloff. Lapping at an impressive pace, he held sixth for the best part of the race, losing one position over the last lap to cross the line seventh. Vierge’s race was immediately conditioned by a crash on the very first lap, when another rider made contact with him through turn three. The Spaniard rejoined the race but was of course in last position. Lapping almost two seconds quicker than the rider immediately ahead, he was able to reach and pass him on lap ten. Able to maintain a strong pace all the way to the line, Vierge made up four more positions to close a valiant fifteenth, scoring one championship point for his efforts.
With just one championship round left to run, Vierge lies eighth in the standings with 140 points and Lecuona places twelfth with 136. Team HRC will be on track for those final races at the Circuito de Jerez over the weekend of 27-29 October.
I’m really happy overall with the work we’ve done this weekend. I was expecting to struggle more here to be honest. The team did a good job and we basically kept the same bike setup right from Friday, which is always a very good sign. The Superpole race was a really good one, at one point I thought the podium was possible but then I realized that I needed to cool down on the bike so as not to destroy the tyres. P5 in the end was a very good result, fighting in the group and closing just three seconds from the podium, and also securing a good starting position for Race 2. A starting position that for once I didn’t waste, because I didn’t gain over the first lap but didn’t lose ground either. I was able to ride very fast for several laps, until the first big tyre drop came mid-race, causing me some chattering. I had to manage the situation the best I could, and when Danilo and Dominique caught me, I was able to fend off the latter but not the former. Having said that, we again managed to limit the gap to the front and score a positive P7 that also gives me some good points. I’m very happy and now we have three weeks to re-charge and prepare for the last round of the season in a very positive frame of mind.
We’ve finished what has been a very strange weekend with many unexpected events that didn’t really come down to our work or choices. But the good thing is that we were able to react well to each setback and fight back. We worked well in terms of the bike setup, taking another step compared to yesterday, and I was able to finish ninth in the Superpole, so inside the top ten which was our target. Then we adjusted the bike a little more for race 2 but some bad luck quite literally hit us again, when another rider made contact and caused me to crash. I re-joined the race and tried to fight back as much as I could. One point is what it is, but at least I was able to appreciate that the feeling of the bike was better than yesterday, and if I’d had chance to run a ‘normal’ race, I think I could have fought as hard as my teammate, who had a strong weekend. We take the positives anyway, in that we worked well all weekend. Now we will reset and move on to Jerez stronger than ever.
