Vierge and Lecuona battle the elements on day 1 at Assen
TT Circuit AssenTeam HRC is back in action this weekend, competing in the third Superbike World Championship round at the Assen TT Circuit with factory riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.
Team HRC is back in action this weekend, competing in the third Superbike World Championship round at the Assen TT Circuit with factory riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.
After almost a month without races, the riders first challenge was to tackle the cold and damp conditions of FP1, with track temperatures of just 13°C this morning. Having elected to remain in the garage during the initial minutes of the session, along with almost the entire SBK field, Vierge and Lecuona headed out as soon as conditions improved slightly, although the track never fully dried. Vierge chose to complete a single long run to assess the bike’s behavior following some setup changes with respect to the last round in Barcelona. He managed to maintain a consistent pace and set a best time of 1’36.897 in the closing minutes, placing eleventh. Lecuona made a couple of runs in an attempt to improve his setup on the drying track, with a personal best of 1’37.110 in the morning putting him in fifteenth position.
Intermittent rain showers throughout the day meant that the second free practice also ran on a wet track, with riders forced to make the best of the challenging conditions. Once again, most riders waited to see whether conditions would improve before making an exit. Ten minutes in and Lecuona ventured out, closely followed by team-mate Vierge, with the lap times gradually coming down as the track began to dry. The second half of the session saw Lecuona improve marginally on his earlier reference (1’36.955). With sixteen minutes to go, the session was momentarily interrupted with a red flag due to safety conditions. In the time it took to restart the session, the rain returned, preventing riders from lowering their times any further. This meant that Vierge rounded out day one in sixteenth place in the combined standings, followed by Lecuona, seventeenth.
“There wasn’t much track action today due to the bad weather. We made a change to the bike setup after the Barcelona round, and this morning the feeling honestly wasn't that bad. After spending some time in the garage waiting for conditions to improve enough to warrant going out, I decided to make a long run because the track conditions were improving lap by lap, and I preferred to stay out to better understand the bike's response. I wasn't disappointed with the feeling. We continued to follow our working plan and made another significant change to the bike for FP2, but conditions essentially prevented us from obtaining any accurate feedback. The surface was patchy, so we chose to start with the same used tyres we’d used during the morning. When the time came to put in new ones, the rain returned. It's a pity because we were looking forward to obtaining data for that setup change, but it is what it is, and conditions are the same for everyone. It looks like tomorrow's conditions will be similar, so we must be ready for whatever comes our way.”
"Today, we focused on improving feeling with the bike after a first exit this morning revealed some setup issues. There were some chattering problems to solve, as well as a general lack of feeling with the bike. Conditions didn't help of course, because we had to wait some time to start the session both this morning and this afternoon, but I felt better after we made some changes following FP1. I was able to improve on my previous best lap time with used tyres, which is a positive development for us because it allowed us to gather some good data. When the session restarted after the red flag, we didn't switch from the 'flag-to-flag' setup to a full wet setup, and I found it tricky to ride the bike, especially due to the strong winds and strange track conditions, with half of it full wet and half almost dry. So, we didn't have chance to make any further progress really. That said, we’ll see if the weather tomorrow allows us to exploit the small improvements made for the dry setting."
