WorldSBK 2016 Hayden battles from front row to claim fifth place in race one at Losail Round 13 – Qatar

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#WorldSBK 2016 @Hayden battles from front row to claim fifth place in race one at #Losail Round 13 – #Qatar
Losail International Circuit, Qatar



Nicky Hayden has finished the 17-lap, penultimate race of the 2016 FIM Superbike World Championship in fifth place, after securing an excellent second spot on the grid in Superpole. Under the floodlights of Qatar’s Losail International Circuit, Hayden’s Honda WorldSBK team mate Michael van der Mark was ninth after starting from the third row and experiencing a difficult opening lap of the encounter.
Hayden got a great launch off the front row the grid and maintained his position entering turn one, before dropping down one place in the following change of direction. The experienced American rider held on to third place until the start of lap eight, when he was passed by Sylvain Guintoli at the end of the main straight. Hayden did all he could to stay with the Frenchman but as the laps went by, he gradually lost ground and found himself under pressure from Sykes. Hayden was unable to defend his position as he crossed the line fifth, only 0.160s away from his rival.
Van der Mark did not enjoy the best of starts from ninth place and dropped all the way down to 17th on the opening lap. The young Dutchman was able to make up some ground in the early part of the race and – by lap 7 – he was already back to ninth. Van der Mark kept a consistent rhythm throughout the remaining laps and kept his position at the flag.
The final encounter of the World Superbike season will get underway tomorrow at 21:00 local time (GMT +3).







Nicky Hayden 69
5th
I made a very good lap in Superpole and I admit it was really happy with it. I made a good start and tried to stay with Davies and Rea in the beginning, but unfortunately I just didn’t have the pace. As the tyres went off, things got worse for me and unfortunately I finished fifth after doing a big part of the race on the podium. As you can imagine, I’m not too pumped with that but luckily I have a good team and we have some good data, so we will surely try to pull a few tweaks and see if we can do better tomorrow
- Honda WorldSBK






Michael van der Mark 60
9th
Free Practice 3 didn’t really give us any really important information, because the sun was out and the temperatures were extremely different than at night time. Then in Superpole 1 after an early mistake I did what I thought was not a great lap, but in the end it turned to be a really competitive one and that meant I could move on to Superpole 2. Unfortunately, with the qualifying tyre I felt not as good as I would have liked and that translated into ninth place on the grid. I was happy with the pace on my race tyres but I had another problem at the start, which cost me so many places. It’s a shame, really, because we know that halfway through the race here it’s basically impossible to make up ground, so there was very little I could do.
- Honda WorldSBK






Pieter Breddels
Technical Manager
Nicky had an incredible qualifying and his lap was 0.3secs faster than last year’s best lap. He started the race very well, but unfortunately he couldn’t hang on to third place and, in the end, he got beaten by only a tenth of a second for fourth place. He still has some little issues and that’s what we are going to work on ahead of tomorrow. If we can hang on to the podium in race two that would be a great end to the season. Michael did an excellent job in Superpole 1, but then in Superpole 2 he couldn’t do better than ninth after what was a very close qualifying session. Unfortunately for him, he had a problem at the start and although he was able to recover many places in the first half, he ended up doing the same lap times as the guys ahead. He made up some more ground in the end, but that wasn’t enough.
- Honda WorldSBK