Category: Superbikes

1. Lloyds British Moto Rapido Ducati leave Oulton Park disappointed after a promising start

   Posted on 10:00am Monday 7th Sep 2015

   The Lloyds British Moto Rapido Ducati team were unable to lose the curse of bad luck that has beset the team this season. The Winchester based team were unable to capitalise on a promising practice and qualifying sessions as technical gremlins plagued the team throughout the three races.

   Hopkins had been quick throughout the weekend but the run of bad luck had continued in qualifying three and all three races of the weekend’s triple header.

   Qualifying had begun in a promising manner for ‘Hopper’ with a P3 in Q1 and 2nd in Q2. However a missed gear in the final qualifying session on a flying lap, led Hopkins to run on at cascades resulting in a slow speed spill thus only being able to complete the qualifying session.

   Race 1 - Hopkins starting from 10th position on the fourth row of the grid immediately made gains on lap 1 as he eased into 7th position. He was to the hold this position until lap 3 when a dust-up with Luke Mossey relegated him to 8th. ‘Hopper’ began to lose ground to those in front but seemed to regroup and close in on the tails of McConnell and Linfoot. However it soon became apparent that Hopkins had a problem as his times dropped and he fell further down the field. On Lap 13 the Californian rider brought his Panigale into the pit lane as he could no longer continue with the grip levels he had available. Hopkins did re-join the race briefly once the tyre had cooled to see if any grip had retuned but pulled into the garage shortly afterwards after the rear tyre continued to spin up.

   Race 2 - Again Hopkins started from the 4th row but after two laps had dropped back to 13th position, however on lap 3 a mistake led to him dropping further back to 21st. From there Hopkins had to dig deep to try and claw some places back for the Lloyds British Moto Rapido Panigale. By half distance the American rider had moved into 16th and then over the next couple of laps moved through the field to close in on the top 10 only for technical problems to strike again. A clutch problem gave Hopkins no option but to pull into the pits to end another eventful and ultimately disappointing race for the team.

   Race 3 - A decent lap in race 2 set up Hopkins for a row 2 start in the final race of the weekend. A good start meant Hopkins held his position and was immediately challenging Linfoot in front of him but mechanical gremlins struck again. Hopkins found it difficult to select a gear so was forced to bring the bike back to the garage to end a disheartening weekend that had seemed to promise so much.

   Steve Moore – Team Manager – Lloyds British Moto Rapido Ducati

   “It’s been a really disappointing weekend, we had the lap pace, and we had the lap times, the fastest the bike and John had ever been around here. There was not much we could do about race 1, but race 2 we had a clutch failure, for race 3 we changed everything, we wouldn’t have done anything different so we will have to investigate the reasons for what happened in race 3. So we just have to move on to Assen where we expect the bike and John to be strong. We have not had some of these technical problems before so hopefully we have now got them out of the way for the final leg of the season.”

   James Egan riding the MWR Motorsports Superstock 1000 Ducati never managed to get going during the weekend. Egan was 18th in first qualifying and was unable to improve on that position in second qualifying due to damp track conditions. A race start from the 7th row on the grid was always going to make things difficult for the South African and was not helped by a poor start to the race that left him languishing in 25th place. Egan failed to improve on his position in the race and returned to the garage after lap 7.

   Mark Webster – Team Manager Lloyds British MWR Ducati

   “Its been a disappointing end to a long weekend, unfortunately James didn’t feel confident in himself to push the bike as much as he needed to and therefore didn’t ride the bike to its full potential. We now look forward to the last races and hope to capitalise on a good result.”

2. Fifth place start for Honda Endurance Racing at the Oschersleben 8 Hours‏ ‏

   Posted on 10:25am Saturday 22nd Aug 2015

   The Honda Endurance Racing team will start tomorrow’s German Speedweek Oschersleben 8 Hours race from fifth position aboard the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP.

   Honda’s trio of endurance specialists Julien Da Costa, Freddy Foray and Sébastien Gimbert completed the final qualifying sessions today and their combined times gave the Honda squad an average lap time of 1’27.644, placing them fifth.

   Throughout the day all three Honda riders built on their lap times from yesterday’s sessions with Da Costa obtaining the seventh best time with 1’27.740 lap. Team-mate Gimbert finished his session top of the sheet with a best time of 1’27.306, and Foray’s 1’27.887 lap time saw him finish his stint in fifth position.

   The Oschersleben 8 Hours race will start tomorrow (Saturday 22 August) at 12:00 (GMT+1).

3. APRILIA RACING TEAM GRESINI - Indianapolis Grand Prix, Race

   Posted on 10:00am Monday 10th Aug 2015

   Indianapolis (USA), 9 August 2015 - An extremely demanding weekend for the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini has just come to an end where they found a stubborn adversary in the American Indianapolis track. The characteristics of the Indy track penalised the RS-GP, especially in the second half of the race when tyre wear kept Alvaro Bautista from battling for a finish in a position that would have earned him championship points, where he had been hanging on, and it kept Stefan Bradl from holding onto the positions he had gained after a good start. The German rider also had to deal with pain in his recently operated right wrist, but he is leaving the United States with good sensations after his debut on the Aprilia.

   At the start Alvaro Bautista was unable to find his way through to move up in position through the first turns, finding himself stuck in a thick group of riders. Bradl, on the other hand, got off the line well, even moving up to thirteenth position at the beginning of the race. However, both riders suffered a drop in grip which was particularly penalizing in right-handers. Alvaro finished his race in 18th place, whereas Bradl crossed the line in 20th.
   
   
   ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Director)
   “We had some difficulties with the rear tyre in a way that we had never experience before, especially on the right side, so much that both riders at a certain point were forced to slow down significantly. For Stefan the pain in his operated right wrist added to the problems, so both riders lost a bit of their edge toward the end of the race. The fundamental problem, which was closing out turns, has an impact on the grip and that is where we need to work. Thanks to Bradl’s comments, which add to the great job Alvaro is doing, we may have identified some new solutions that we’ll be testing in the next race at Brno."
   
   FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)
   “This was a difficult race in terms of the result which was certainly not the best, but I should point out that we did a good job with both riders throughout the weekend and this is important in view of the coming rounds. Alvaro rode a good race, but when the tyres began to wear he struggled a lot to maintain a good pace, whereas in the final phases of the race Bradl was feeling the pain in his injured right race and he crossed the finish line under a lot of stress.”
   
   ALVARO BAUTISTA
   “This was a really hard race. We had the same difficulties that had come up in practice. At the start I struggled because on the first turn I found myself stuck in a group of a lot of riders and wasn’t about to gain any positions. From there on I tried to set my pace and I was in the zone to be able to battle for fifteenth place and a points finish, but I had trouble keeping up with the others. This track posed some difficulty for us, especially when we started feeling the tyre war. In right-handers I was losing a lot of time. In any case, we finished the race and collected some more fundamental information for 2016. I’d like to thank the team for their hard work this weekend.”
   
   STEFAN BRADL
   “After spending three days on the track I expected to have problems with my right wrist today. Already this morning in the Warm Up session I started feeling some pain and after the midway point of the race I wasn’t able to control the bike as I would have liked at a lot of places on the track. In any case, we gave it our all and I consider this first weekend for me on the RS-GP as a positive one. I learned a lot about the bike and together with the team we made a lot of changes in the little time we had available, doing a good job. I wasn’t used to riding the entire race distance on this bike and if you add my injury to that obviously I wasn’t able to be as fast as I would have liked. For the moment we are satisfied anyway and we are looking forward to Brno where we’ll try to take a step forward.”

4. Conor Cummins claims second podium at the Ulster Grand Prix‏

   Posted on 1:00pm Sunday 9th Aug 2015

   The Ulster Grand Prix in Northern Ireland drew to a close yesterday with Honda Racing’s Conor Cummins taking a second podium finish on his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP.

   The final Superbike race of the day took place in wet weather conditions and saw the race reduced to four laps of the 7.4-mile Dundrod circuit. Cummins, 29, started the race from 11th and quickly moved up into the lead group. 

   By the end of the second lap Cummins had slotted into second place and had started to close the gap on the race leader. A close finish across the line saw the ‘Ramsey rocket’ take second place, just behind race winner Peter Hickman.

   Earlier in the day Cummins placed fifth in the first Superbike race. A strong start saw the Manxman running with the top six, but a red flag on the fifth lap saw the race stopped and results declared from the fourth lap. The race winner was Bruce Anstey with Padgetts Honda.  

   Conor Cummins

   I love the Ulster GP and this week has been great with two podium finishes, I think in the first Superbike race yesterday I had the pace to push for another podium finish but unfortunately the red flag came out and put pay to that. The Fireblade has been faultless all week and I have really enjoyed riding it round here for the first time, it suits the circuits fast flowing nature so well and I hope I’ll be back next year for another go!   

   Neil Tuxworth   Overall it’s been a positive meeting for Honda Racing and Conor, we’ve had two-second place finishes and a solid fifth with the Fireblade. Conor was very strong in all races and I am sure would have finished higher in the first Superbike race, but due to the red flag the results were taken from the fourth lap. The second race was fantastic for Conor and he just lost out on the win by half a wheel, another lap and I am sure he could have taken the win.  

5. APRILIA ON THE FIRST AND SECOND ROW AT SEPANG WITH JORDI TORRES AND MAX BIAGGI

   Posted on 5:09pm Saturday 1st Aug 2015

   Aprilia showed its stuff today at Sepang in Superpole, the session that decides the starting order for the WSBK races tomorrow on the Malaysian track.

   Torres took full advantage of the session on a qualifier tyre and rode his RSV4 RF to second place, just 27 hundredths of a second behind Sykes' pole.

   With this performance Jordi, a rookie in World Superbike this year, confirms his growth, improving on his performance at Laguna Seca when, for the first time, he took a spot on the front row, but with the third best time.

   Max Biaggi, the six-time World Champion, did an excellent job in his second wild card of the season. Almost three years after retiring from racing he battled valiantly, leaving many of the Championship protagonists behind and he missed a spot on the front row by just over a tenth of a second. For him this is an excellent fourth best time that places him on the second row and improves on the fifth spot on the grid that he took at Misano.

   Leon Haslam was a bit farther back. The English Aprilia Racing – Red Devils team rider had been one of the main players in the last free practice session to get into Superpole, finishing in second place behind his team mate, Torres, but he was unable to exploit his tyre in the decisive session where he finished in eighth place for a spot on the third row.

   Max Biaggi: “I'm pleased with the final outcome because just toward the end of the qualifiers we figured out a few things and I hope that this is the step forward we were trying to find for the races. This is a demonstration of why it is essential for me to take full advantage of every single session. My testing here, which was conducted in only one day because of the rain, cannot compare to the race weekend habits of the riders who compete throughout the entire season and are accustomed to certain automatisms. Tomorrow I hope to ride two nice races. I want to stay with the leaders and that is why starting well will be important.”

   Jordi Torres: “This morning we did very well and we worked on my RSV4 with a race tyre because we are quite worried about wear, which is the aspect where we still need to make progress and we'll use the warm up session to improve. I am feeling much better with the qualifier tyre now, thanks to increasing experience and in Superpole we pushed well. Maybe I needed be just a bit fiercer to do even better. Now we'll just wait for the races tomorrow. I'm starting from an excellent position and hopefully we'll do well.”

   Leon Haslam: “This morning everything went very well, but unfortunately in the afternoon, both in the last free practice and in Superpole, some problems came up that we are assessing now. We need to improve something on our race pace, but above all we need to get back the feeling I had this morning with my bike. If we can do that tomorrow I'll be able to ride two great races.”