Top ten for Lecuona in WorldSBK Race 1 at Aragón, Vierge 12th
MotorLand AragónThe Motorland Aragón circuit in Spain is staging the tenth Superbike World Championship, with Saturday’s action involving the Superpole qualifying session and first Superbike race.
The Motorland Aragón circuit in Spain is staging the tenth Superbike World Championship, with Saturday’s action involving the Superpole qualifying session and first Superbike race.
Competing with factory riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge, Team HRC was on track this morning for the third and final practice. The brief session allowed the two Spanish riders to make final tweaks to their bike set-up in preparation for the subsequent qualifying session. Both riders were also able to find a few more tenths with respect to their best times of yesterday.
Back out for Superpole later in the morning, the Team HRC duo set about securing the best possible grid position for the first of the weekend’s races. Lecuona almost immediately set a 1’48.976 for a provisional top five placement. The Spaniard was not done there though, finding another tenth before the end of the session to place sixth (1’48.876) and secure a spot on the second row of the grid for race 1. Vierge could not exploit his second tyre in the final stages but a fastest time of 1’49.418, set earlier in the session, saw him conclude twelfth, meaning a fourth row start for the Spaniard.
The riders got off the line for the first 18-lap Superbike race at 2pm CET. Unfortunately, Iker made a jump start that saw him penalized with a double long lap penalty. The penalization was signalled just as Iker got past Bassani for seventh place on lap two. The Spaniard executed the penalty on laps four and five but dropped from P7 to P11 and, ultimately, P15 as a result. He was quick to react though, making up three positions and lying twelfth by the mid-race point. Xavi made a strong start from twelfth, moving into ninth place and holding this position throughout the first half of the race. Struggling with an unexpected lack of grip, Xavi dropped to tenth on lap twelve, when team-mate Iker tucked in behind him, in eleventh. The final phase of the race saw the Team HRC pair exchange positions, with Lecuona crossing the finish line tenth, ahead of team-mate Vierge, twelfth.
Both riders feel that they could have achieved a much better result had it not been for those setbacks, and so will be in a determined frame of mind when they return to Motorland tomorrow for the Superpole sprint race and the second 18-lap Superbike race.
I was very happy with our speed today, if not with the race result. In FP3 I struggled but in qualifying things went exponentially better. I could lap in 1’48 on my first flying lap, alone, and that’s the fastest I have ever been here at Aragon. Then with the second tyre, and with Rea as a reference, I cut just one tenth, meaning that I had already achieved the maximum possible for us here during my first exit. P6 on the grid is nevertheless a big step for us. As for the race, first I must say “sorry” to my team because for the first time in my whole career I made a jump start that cost me a possible P4 or P5. Having said that, I’m happy because even with a double long lap penalty I was able to maintain very good pace, making a solid comeback from fifteenth to finish in the top ten. It wasn’t easy because I had to fight in a group and it was difficult to overtake. I managed to make some passes and then also tried to overtake Bassani on the last lap; we exchanged places a couple of times but in the end I couldn’t make it stick. So a pity about that initial mistake, but a big thank you to the team for their good work. We are feeling good on the bike at this track.
I’m truly disappointed with our race because we’ve done a good job over the weekend, finding good race pace, so our expectations were very different. We did a decent job in qualifying; I just wasn’t able to improve with the second tyre. Anyway, starting from the fourth row with the pace we had was still a good opportunity to score a strong result. I made a good start, but right from lap one the feeling with the rear was completely different from what we’d experienced in the previous sessions. No grip at all. This was both totally unexpected and frustrating so now we need to understand how to avoid this happening again tomorrow, because our bike setup is very good here and I know we can do much better than this.
