Headlines
WorldSBK: Lowes leads the way on opening day at Balaton Park
WorldSBK: WorldSBK’s first Hungarian Round since 1990 saw the 4.075km Balaton Park Circuit bathed in sunshine.
Headlines
WorldSBK: WorldSBK’s first Hungarian Round since 1990 saw the 4.075km Balaton Park Circuit bathed in sunshine.
Temperatures rose to 33°C and Sam Lowes set the pace at the end of the opening day of action.
Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team) set a time of 1’39.528 to set the benchmark in the Superbike class. The Englishman held an advantage of two tenths of a second from Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team). The reigning World Champion ended FP1 with the fastest time but was visibly frustrated in the afternoon after running off-track at Turn 9 and Turn 15 at different times.
Andrea Iannone (Team Pata Go Eleven) and Iker Lecuona (Honda HRC) had encouraging starts to their weekend. Iannone was third fastest, four tenths slower than Razgatlioglu, while Lecuona was fourth fastest. The Honda rider crashed Turn 10 at but still completed 35 laps.
Nicolo Bulega, currently second in the World Championship standings, ended the day eighth fastest. The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati struggled in the heavier braking zones that trademark the Hungarian venue. His teammate, Alvaro Bautista, was sixth fastest but both riders failed to improve on their Free Practice 1 time.
Remy Gardner (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) was the leading Yamaha rider. The Australian, who yesterday was confirmed as signing a contract extension with Yamaha, set his fastest time on his final lap of the day. He was the lone Yamaha YZF R1 in the top ten on the combined times.
P1 – Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team)
“I’m really happy to be here in Hungary and I really enjoyed the track. We rode here on a training bike recently but it’s always different when you ride the Superbike. Overall, it was a positive day. FP2 was a lot hotter but I still had a good feeling. In the morning I was able to maintain consistent lap times and in FP2 I started the session with a longer run. The lap time improvement came more from putting in a new tyre at the end rather than pushing harder. I improved in Sector 2 during the day but I still need to improve in Sector 4. I need to fine-tune my braking marker into the last chicane. Overall, it’s a really nice track and it’s quite complex. There are a lot of places where you can make or lose time.”
P2 – Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team)
“The feeling is good because this is a new track and we have started strongly. We did a very good race simulation and our pace looks strong. The track suits my style, especially for hard braking. We tried one tyre but didn’t have time to test the other one so we still need to understand which is better. It will be important to choose the right tyre for the race. This is a very important race, I want to win here. My big target is the hat-trick again. We’ve started well, and if we keep improving the bike, I think we can get even stronger.”
P3 – Andrea Iannone (Team Pata GoEleven)
“I think we have good potential. We were able to do some important work in the afternoon session. I believe we can still improve in some areas with some small steps. I tried to explain clearly to the team what I needed. It’s not about being too stressed or doing anything dramatic. Honestly, this is one of our best Fridays of the year, which is important for us because we’ve struggled a lot this year on Friday’s. We’ve started to recover the feeling and put things together in the right way. Today was a good start and that’s really encouraging.”
P8 – Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
“Honestly, I didn’t have a great feeling with the bike today. We struggled a bit, especially in the braking areas, and this layout has a lot of heavy braking zones. So we need to adjust the settings for tomorrow and try something different. I think if we improve the braking, the rest will follow. That’s the main goal for tomorrow: improve in that area and then we’ll see.”
Combined Results after FP2
1. Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team) 1’39.528s
2. Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) +0.215s
3. Andrea Iannone (Team Pata GoEleven) +0.614s
4. Iker Lecuona (Honda HRC) +0.840s
5. Remy Gardner (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) +0.956s
6. Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +1.023s
For more info checkout our dedicated WorldSBK (World Superbike) News page superbike-news.co.uk/category/world-superbikes/
Or visit the official World Superbike website worldsbk.com
©Words/Images are from official press release posted courtesy of WorldSBK.com
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