#AragonWorldSBK: GOING THROUGH SUPERPOLE 2 NARROWLY MISSED
For Stefan Bradl, the opening day at the Spanish circuit MotorLand Aragón brought mixed results.
Round three of this year’s FIM Superbike World Championship got underway with Friday morning’s FP1 under dry weather conditions but cool temperatures. Meanwhile, everything began well for the 27-year-old German with a pleasingly start into the weekend in Spain’s outback. Bradl concluded the first free practice session tenth fastest, just 0.6 seconds off the pace. But during the afternoon session he could not take benefit by the softer tyres.
On-track action continues Saturday morning with the third and final free practice before the Superpole sessions will decide the starting grid for race one which is scheduled to get started at 1:00 pm.
#6 Stefan BRADL (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team, Honda CBR1000RR SP2), FP1: P9 – 1´51.177 / FP2: P10 – 1´51.686:
“Our summary after day one of practice here at Motorland sees mixed results. Whilst we were happy with FP1 this morning, things didn’t go that well in the afternoon. In any case, the first session was good start into the weekend. There were not many upgrades or new parts to the package because the bikes were delivered directly to Spain but we got along well from the beginning. However, conditions changed for FP2 significantly, particularly due to stronger winds. Beyond that, for some oddities the softer tyre didn’t work for us.
“It’s a pity because we saved two softer tyres to went out for a time attack but unfortunate I wasn’t able to improve my lap time. From my point of view, therefore, this option has less potential under conditions like this as originally assumed. Apart from that, it was difficult to improve overall. We were one half of a second off which creates some question marks. So, we need to look on it more closely. I think, that we must concentrate on the harder options tomorrow. In the end, I was pushed out of the top ten for which I’m a bit annoyed. That would have been going through Superpole 2.”
#AragonWorldSBK – Free Practices Combined Results:
1 #1 Jonathan REA / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R / 1´50.062 (FP2)
2 #33 Marco MELANDRI / GBR / Aruba.it Racing – Ducati / Ducati Panigale R / 1´50.161 +0.099 (FP2)
3 #66 Tom SYKES / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team / Kawasaki ZX-10R / 1´50.305 +243 (FP2)
11 #6 Stefan BRADL / GER / Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team / 1´51.177 +1.115 (FP1)
WorldSBK Time Schedule for Saturday, April 1st 2017 (MESZ):
08:45 – 09:10 FP3
10:30 – 10:45 Superpole 1
10:55 – 11:10 Superpole 2
13:00 – Race 1 (18 Laps – 91.386 km)