WorldSBK 2016 Hayden begins home round with third place in free practice Round 9 – USA Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, United

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@WorldSBK 2016 @Hayden begins home round with third place in free practice Round 9 – #USA #Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, United States



The Honda WorldSBK Team has completed the opening day of the US Round at the Laguna Seca Raceway in California, United States of America, with local hero Nicky Hayden claiming third place in the combined times of today’s two free practice sessions. After missing out on a top-10 finish today by only 0.007secs, Michael van der Mark will start tomorrow’s Superpole from the first session, with the goal to make it through and enter the battle for a spot on the first four rows of the grid.
Round nine of the 2016 FIM Superbike World Championship started off well for both van der Mark and Hayden, who were fourth and fifth, respectively, at the end of the first hour of action. The two Honda riders had a slightly more difficult time in getting up to speed on board their CBR1000RR Fireblade SP machines in the afternoon: Hayden was able to bounce back in the late stages of FP2 and, after elevating himself to fifth place, he logged in 1’23.866 to take third at the chequered flag. Van der Mark was tenth until the very final moments of the session, but was displaced by a late comeback from Jordi Torres.
The ninth Superpole of the season will get underway tomorrow at 11:30 local time (GMT -7).







Nicky Hayden 69
3rd / 1'23.866
It was a good day overall. Things weren’t looking too good this afternoon, though, until the final moments, when I was able to get out and put together a decent lap time. I was feeling good on the bike and thought I could even improve a bit more. We ran into a few problems today with the electronics, we needed a bit more time than usual to get the right power and the right mapping for the right part of the track. Today wasn’t as smooth as we hoped, but we will try something more tomorrow morning, also tyre-wise, hoping it won’t be too foggy. I’m happy to back at Laguna and to see so many people around on Friday already.
- Honda WorldSBK






Michael van der Mark 60
11th / 1'24.317
After the difficulties we had last year here at Laguna, I was happy to jump on the bike this morning and feel good straight away. We made some small changes after FP1 but we decided to go back to the previous settings, we then tried a different tyre but, although I was very consistent, the lap-time wasn’t coming. In the end we used the old tyre from the morning and I was able to put together a good lap, but it wasn’t enough. It’s a shame not to be in Superpole 2, but I think we already have a good bike for tomorrow.
- Honda WorldSBK






Pieter Breddels
Technical Manager
Nicky had a few small issues this morning and lost some more time this afternoon, which was unfortunate. After some steady work with the set-up and with a new set of tyres on, though, he was able to massively improve on his previous lap-time and to go from eleventh to third, with only a quarter of a second gap from first place. That’s a good sign ahead of tomorrow; there are some things we need to sort out but hopefully we can continue improving before race one. Michael was very quick in the morning session, then in the afternoon we got stuck a bit while trying different tyre combinations. It took a while to fully realise the A solution was not the right one for him and, because we had used too many tyres already, we couldn’t give him a fresh set for his last outing. Nonetheless, he is quite happy with the bike and, although he is in Superpole 1, things are still looking good for him.
- Honda WorldSBK