Positive weekend for Lecuona at Misano, Vierge aims to reverse his fortunes soon
Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli”Now back to fitness after a series of injuries during the first part of the season, Team HRC rider Lecuona wraps up the fourth WorldSBK round with his best weekend of the season so far at the Misano World Circuit ‘Marco Simoncelli’
Now back to fitness after a series of injuries during the first part of the season, Team HRC rider Lecuona wraps up the fourth WorldSBK round with his best weekend of the season so far at the Misano World Circuit ‘Marco Simoncelli’, securing three top ten finishes, including seventh and ninth place in Sunday’s races. Crashing twice during the weekend after being hit by other riders, today Vierge was only able to finish thirteenth in the Superpole race.
The ten-lap Superpole race ran at 11am local time (CEST). From fourteenth, Lecuona immediately moved up into eleventh place through the first corners and was lying eighth by lap two. Part of the chasing group, the Spaniard showed strong pace, working hard to move up the field. Iker gained a further position in the second part of this short sprint to cross the line seventh. Xavi Vierge made similar progress throughout the race, quickly gaining four positions and battling as part of a group of four riders. He ultimately crossed the line thirteenth, the rider maintaining a consistent pace for the duration of the race.
The final race of the weekend saw Lecuona promoted to seventh on the grid thanks to his Superpole race result. Despite losing two positions off the line, the Spaniard was quick to react, back up to eighth by lap 2. Lecuona held that position until three laps from the end, when he ran a little wide through a corner, which allowed Gardner to pass and gain a small advantage. Iker’s ninth place finish was nevertheless a solid result, coming at the end of a strong race and a positive weekend. Seventeenth on the grid, team-mate Xavi was lying fifteenth through lap 1 and continued to gain ground in the early stages, positioning thirteenth by lap 3. He oscillated between thirteenth and fourteenth until lap ten, when he was unfortunately involved in a crash with Gerloff at turn 8.
Team HRC will now head to Cremona for a two-day testing session on 19-20 June, before the next WorldSBK championship round, taking place at the Donington Park circuit in the UK over the weekend of 12-14 July.
Overall, I’m really happy with the weekend, with the work we’ve done over the three days and with our three top ten finishes. We worked very well on Friday, though we struggled a bit more than expected in qualifying on Saturday. Despite that, our pace was good and consistent in Race 1, which had us feeling confident for today. We achieved P7 in the Superpole race with some strong lap times, a little over one tenth slower than my qualifying time, which gave us extra motivation for Race 2. I felt good during the second race and was able to stay with Danilo (Petrucci) and Axel (Bassani) for several laps until I started to struggle with the front. I had to save a few crashes in turns 2, 4, 10, and 14 where you need to close the line, so I lost touch with them and Remy (Gardner) caught me. I was able to defend the position for a while, then I ran wide through a corner, and he passed me. I realized it was too risky to exceed the limit to stay with him, so I brought home this ninth place, which is a good result for us at the moment. I feel we exploited the bike’s potential this weekend, and that makes me happy. After some long months spent recovering from injuries and unable to clock up many miles on the bike, a weekend like this is really good. We have two more days of testing next week, where we’ll see if we can take another step to be able to fight regularly in the top ten.
Overall, I’m really happy with the weekend, with the work we’ve done over the three days and with our three top ten finishes. We worked very well on Friday, though we struggled a bit more than expected in qualifying on Saturday. Despite that, our pace was good and consistent in Race 1, which had us feeling confident for today. We achieved P7 in the Superpole race with some strong lap times, a little over one tenth slower than my qualifying time, which gave us extra motivation for Race 2. I felt good during the second race and was able to stay with Danilo (Petrucci) and Axel (Bassani) for several laps until I started to struggle with the front. I had to save a few crashes in turns 2, 4, 10, and 14 where you need to close the line, so I lost touch with them and Remy (Gardner) caught me. I was able to defend the position for a while, then I ran wide through a corner, and he passed me. I realized it was too risky to exceed the limit to stay with him, so I brought home this ninth place, which is a good result for us at the moment. I feel we exploited the bike’s potential this weekend, and that makes me happy. After some long months spent recovering from injuries and unable to clock up many miles on the bike, a weekend like this is really good. We have two more days of testing next week, where we’ll see if we can take another step to be able to fight regularly in the top ten.
I want to apologise to the team; it’s been a very difficult weekend for me and we need to understand why we weren’t able to go faster. We did improve from Friday to Saturday and were just unlucky in the race when another rider hit me. Today, conditions changed a little bit and that affected us more than it should have. I struggled a lot during both races. In race 2, I was battling to defend my position when Gerloff hit me through turn 8 and I had a big highside. Luckily, I’m unhurt, and it’s all part of racing. What we really need to understand is what happened and why we couldn’t be fast enough. We had to stop the bike too much at the apex, which made it easy for riders behind to make mistakes and hit me from behind. So now we need to focus on that and understand how to turn things around as soon as possible. Iker made progress this weekend, so we will need to analyse the data during the upcoming test in Cremona next week and be prepared for the next round.
I want to apologise to the team; it’s been a very difficult weekend for me and we need to understand why we weren’t able to go faster. We did improve from Friday to Saturday and were just unlucky in the race when another rider hit me. Today, conditions changed a little bit and that affected us more than it should have. I struggled a lot during both races. In race 2, I was battling to defend my position when Gerloff hit me through turn 8 and I had a big highside. Luckily, I’m unhurt, and it’s all part of racing. What we really need to understand is what happened and why we couldn’t be fast enough. We had to stop the bike too much at the apex, which made it easy for riders behind to make mistakes and hit me from behind. So now we need to focus on that and understand how to turn things around as soon as possible. Iker made progress this weekend, so we will need to analyse the data during the upcoming test in Cremona next week and be prepared for the next round.
