Lecuona and Vierge seek more at Barcelona home track
Circuit de Barcelona-CatalunyaTeam HRC and factory riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge have completed the first of the weekend’s World Superbike races at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya inside the points zone, in thirteenth and fourteenth place respectively.
Team HRC and factory riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge have completed the first of the weekend’s World Superbike races at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya inside the points zone, in thirteenth and fourteenth place respectively.
The morning’s final free practice allowed the team to make further adjustments to the setup of the factory CBR1000RR-R machines, after which Vierge and Lecuona prepared for the Superpole qualifying session. Lecuona and Vierge put in their fastest times of the weekend in the first few minutes of the session, Iker recording a 1’41.177 and Xavi a 1’41.197. These initial times remained their best references of the phase, which meant that Lecuona qualified eighteenth and Vierge nineteenth for the afternoon’s first race.
Race 1 ran according to schedule at 2pm local time (CET). From the sixth and the seventh row of the grid, Lecuona and Vierge made a solid start, positioning themselves sixteenth and fourteenth, respectively, by the end of the first lap. Both riders managed to gain two more positions during the initial stages, as they worked hard to establish an effective rhythm. Part of a compact group of riders, Vierge remained behind Bassani for almost the entire duration of the race. He finally moved up into eleventh on lap sixteen, but then fell back to thirteenth after experiencing a significant drop in grip. Meanwhile, Lecuona, lying fourteenth and part of the same group, was pushing hard to gain ground despite his fatigued shoulder and managed to overtake his team-mate in the very last corners. The Team HRC duo crossed the finish line just 0.039 of a second apart, with Iker closing in thirteenth place and Xavi fourteenth.
Team HRC will be aiming to do more in tomorrow Superpole race and second 20-lap Superbike race, which will round out the weekend’s action at the Catalunya circuit.
After the race I felt some fatigue and a bit of pain in my left shoulder, but I have to say that this track wasn’t too much of a stress on me physically and it was more a matter of managing the tyre life. From lap ten to twenty everyone was basically just trying to save the tyres and not push to the limit, a bit like in an endurance race. It’s true that one of my strong points is braking so I continued to push but could go a bit easier into the corners and finish the race at a decent level. As for the rest, we’re not going to say this is an easy weekend of course. Two years ago, we were on pole here while today, despite an almost perfect lap in qualifying, I finished eighteenth. It’s not easy to accept for anyone in the team, honestly. In the race we were almost able to stick with the group ahead, which included my teammate. The gap increased a little at times because I wanted to save the tyres as much as possible for the last laps. In the meantime, I enjoyed some battles with Rinaldi and Gerloff and then eventually I caught Xavi. We had a good fight all the way to the final corner where, thanks to a slightly better tyre, I was able to get past him. Not a positive result, as thirteenth is definitely not our target, but we had some fun anyway. Now let’s see what we can do tomorrow.
It was a really difficult race. In the morning, we ran a good FP3, improving our pace with used tyres and also with the 'Q' spec. We didn't change anything on the bike, but then in the Superpole I felt I had no grip at all, especially on corner entry with both my soft tyres. It was as if the rear wanted to overtake the front, a very strange sensation that I hadn't experienced in the last few days at this track. So, that made for a horrible qualifying session. Despite that though, we knew that our race pace was not bad. I made a good start and was able to overtake several riders, positioning myself just behind Bassani. From there, I focused on managing tyre wear, taking care of the engine brake and throttle, but in any case, with five or six laps to go, the right side of the tyre degraded significantly, which meant I lost a lot of grip and couldn't defend my position. We must think about how to address this issue for tomorrow, which won't be easy because I think we already did a good job and had a solid plan today. But we'll see, especially considering that the weather conditions may change compared to today.
