Small improvements and room for more for Team HRC at Magny-Cours
Circuit de Nevers Magny-CoursTeam HRC is at the Magny-Cours circuit in France where it is competing in the ninth WorldSBK round with factory riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.
Team HRC is at the Magny-Cours circuit in France where it is competing in the ninth WorldSBK round with factory riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge. Today’s action included the Superpole qualifying session and the first of the weekend’s races, which ran in particularly hot conditions and saw Team HRC cross the line twelfth with Vierge and fourteenth with Lecuona.
Vierge was seen by doctors early this morning following a crash in yesterday’s FP2 and was passed fit to continue with the weekend. After a final brief practice that allowed the team to make some final adjustments to their bikes, Lecuona and Vierge were ready for the Superpole. Soon improving on their best times of the weekend so far, both riders made a pit-stop mid-session to put in qualifying tyres. The Team HRC duo returned to the track and finished the session with a best of 1’36.667 and 1’36.710 respectively, Iker and Xavi thus qualifying for the afternoon’s race in fourteenth and sixteenth position based on these results.
Race Direction subsequently decided to hand Vierge a three-position penalty for race 1 following apparent ‘slow riding’ during the Superpole. This meant that Iker started the afternoon’s race from the fifth row and Xavi from row seven. Race 1 got underway a few minutes late due to a technical problem with the safety car, but the Team HRC riders got away well when the lights eventually went out. Lying fourteenth and seventeenth into lap two, Lecuona and Vierge made up ground in the early stages to move into twelfth and thirteenth position respectively by lap six. The duo held firm until the final stages of the race when they found themselves battling it out against Baz. Fighting all the way to the line, Xavi ultimately rounded out the race in twelfth position, followed by Iker in fourteenth place.
I’m very happy to be passed fit today after a big crash like the one I had yesterday, and a big thanks to the doctors at the track and to Medical Director Monica (Lazzarotti) who followed and supported me during all the medical check procedures. I am of course experiencing some pain all over my body, but nothing that couldn’t be managed - we are used to these situations after all. It definitely didn’t affect our results today, which are in line with our current level, so all in all I think we were able to achieve the best possible outcome, also considering the grid penalty. That was deserved by the way, because I made a mistake on my last lap and cut the chicane. I did check to see if another rider was coming and braked before re-joining the track but didn’t spot Alvaro between corner 11 and 12. Anyway, as I said, I don’t think we could have done any better than this even if we’d started one row further forward so we must just continue working hard to try and improve. We might have made a little step forward compared to last year, but the other riders have made a bigger one. With the addition of even more fast riders, the level is currently very high, and we need a change of pace to be able to fight up front. As for tomorrow, we’ll keep focusing on the task in hand and on doing our best with what we have right now.
I’m at a bit of a loss for words at the moment because it’s not easy to accept we are struggling to fight just to reach the points zone. This is of course not what we want as a rider, a team and as a factory. This morning we improved on our best time of yesterday by more than a second, it’s true, but the guys ahead did the same so the gap to the front didn’t really change. During the race I tried to fight and made a few passes, but I also had to make a couple of big saves, almost losing the front on several occasions. So at the moment I’m feeling very frustrated, to be honest. We need to collect our thoughts and focus on a plan to try and do better for tomorrow and in general for the future.
