#USWorldSBK: PROMISING START WITH NINTH FASTEST ON FRIDAY MORNING IN CALIFORNIA
At his comeback at the Laguna Seca Raceway after four years, Stefan Bradl got back quickly with the tricky Corkscrew.
The season’s round eight at the outback of Monterey at California’s Pacific coastline got underway in wonderful summer weather. For Stefan Bradl, however, the opening day was a rollercoaster as it happened many time this year already. After a pleasingly start with a strong FP1 this morning, a difficult afternoon clouded the mood. Bradl and his crew were forced to change the engine in the break between both sessions but the spare engine caused many problems and beyond that, Bradl had to overcome an early fall in the famous Corkscrew. The later, however, did not further affect today’s outcome though the Honda rider could not improve his lap time and therefore qualification begins for him with Saturday’s Superpole1.
As usual, both races of the weekend will be broadcasted by Austrian’s channel ServusTV. The live coverage, by the way which is to see in free TV within the entire German speaking area, starts on Saturday and Sunday with half an hour earlier to the scheduled race start at 11:00 pm CET respectively.
#6 Stefan BRADL (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team, Honda CBR1000RR SP2), FP1: P9 – 1´24.928 / FP2: P16 – 1´25.595:
“The first session this morning was ok. It was actually quite a promising start to the weekend. I had a good feeling straight away and I was able to get used to the track quickly. Then, we tried different tyres. FP1 was really good. During the second session, the conditions were much hotter. But this did not further bother us. The problem was rather a new engine, which we had to swap during the break. With this spare engine, the engine break did not work properly as well as a few other things. Apart from this, I made a mistake immediately after the session got started.”
“This fall, when I lost the front, was nothing bad. Nevertheless, it affected somehow our remaining practice time. FP2 was again characterized by many electronic problems. But that was not all, because we must swap the engine for tomorrow again. This means, that we have to use a new sealed engine from our allocation. In any case, it is a little annoying because after the good start this morning we ran into many problems again. Our pace in FP1 was really strong while the feeling was less good with the other engine. Hopefully we will be able to make a turn-around with the new sealed engine tomorrow so that we can continue there where we left this morning.”
#USWorldSBK – Free Practice Combined Results FP1/FP2:
1 Chaz DAVIES / GBR / Aruba.it Racing – Ducati / Ducati Panigale R / 1´23.425 (FP1)
2 Jonathan REA / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R / 1´23.436 +0.011 (FP2)
3 Marco MELANDRI / ITA / Aruba.it Racing – Ducati / Ducati Panigale R / 1´23.778 +0.353 (FP2)
14 #6 Stefan BRADL / GER / Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team / 1´24.928 +1.503 (FP1)
#USWorldSBK – Time Schedule for Saturday July 8th, 2017 (CET):
18:15 – 18:40 FP3
20:00 – 20:15 Superpole 1
20:25 – 20:40 Superpole 2
23:00 – Race 1 (25 Laps – 90.250 km)