Pata Honda rider Kyle Smith set the seventh fastest time in today’s combined free practice sessions as he prepares his Honda CBR600RR for Sunday’s seventh round World Supersport championship race at Portimao in Portugal.
The 23-year-old British rider set a time of 1m47.176s around the sweeping and undulating 4.592km of the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, 25 km from Portimao.
Smith is looking for a solid finish in Sunday’s 18-lap race after crashing in both previous outings and he is confident of further improvements in both lap time and provisional grid position ahead of final qualifying tomorrow afternoon.
Kyle Smith - P7, 1m47.176s
This morning went OK but we made some changes to the bike and I don’t think it was the improvement we were looking for. We’ve just been over some of the data to prepare a plan for tomorrow. I feel pretty comfortable even though the lap times didn’t come in that second session. I was having to put too much lean angle on the bike to get it to turn this morning so we played around with the geometry a little. I think we can sort that out and see how it goes tomorrow.
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator
It was not a bad day in the end but the temperatures went up a lot this afternoon, which gave us some problems with the grip and the feeling at the front of the CBR. We have to come up with a plan to fix that so we’ll continue working tonight and tomorrow.
Weather
Sunny
Air
29°C
Track
54°C
Humidity
41%
Free Practice Results
1 Jules Cluzel 1m46.005s FRA MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse
2 Kenan Sofuoglu 1m46.152s TUR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Puccetti Racing
3 Lorenzo Zanetti 1m46.390s ITA MV MV Agusta Reparto Corse
4 Patrick Jacobson 1m46.512s USA HONDA CORE Motorsport Thailand
5 Gino Rea 1m46.901s GBR HONDA CIA Landlords Insurance Honda
6 Roberto Rolfo 1m46.967s ITA HONDA Team Lorini
7 Kyle Smith 1m47.176s GBR HONDA Pata Honda World Supersport Team
8 Alex Baldolini 1m47.360s ITA MV Race Department ATK#25
9 Marco Faccani 1m47.452s ITA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Puccetti Racing
10 Martin Cardenas 1m47.462s COL HONDA CIA Landlords Insurance Honda