Pata Honda riders Sylvain Guintoli and Michael van der Mark finished in combined seventh and 11th places respectively after today’s two free practice sessions for round seven of the 2015 World Superbike championship at Portimao in Portugal.
The pace was set by Italian Davide Giugliano but Guintoli was pleased at the continuation of the positive progress taken from the last round at Donington Park. The 32-year-old Frenchman was 0.7s from Giugliano’s best time and is looking forward to further steps in tomorrow’s sessions.
After a difficult opening free practice this morning, Dutchman van der Mark was able to improve his lap time in spite of much higher track temperatures this afternoon.
He, too, is confident that adjustments to his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP will allow him to qualify well for tomorrow afternoon’s Superpole sessions that will determine final grid positions for Sunday’s two 20-lap races at the 4.592km Autodromo Internacional do Algarve.
Sylvain Guintoli - P7, 1m44.118s
Today was probably one of the best Friday’s we’ve had since the start of the season and we’re closer to the front than we’ve been. I feel quite good even though we still have quite a big margin to improve tomorrow. We’ve had a few bad days over race weekends this season, but I feel like today we’ve had a good one, so that’s really nice!
Michael van der Mark - P11, 1m44.388s
This morning was really difficult – we had a lot of problems and I really didn’t have a good feeling on the bike. For this afternoon we made some really big changes and started with completely different setting and immediately I had a better feeling. We only changed some small things on the bike during the session and made some positive steps. There are still a lot of things we can improve, but least I have a good feeling now, which gives us a base setting to go into tomorrow’s sessions.
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator
Michael was not happy with the setting this morning and he was uncomfortable with the way the bike handled. We tried to make some big steps to find a direction but couldn’t find the right way. This afternoon was much better – we concentrated on the priority points and made some improvements. He’s 11th but still only a few tenths from a top six position. Sylvain was quite quick from the start this morning and used only one tyre. We managed to make some more improvements this afternoon and, although there is still more work to do, it’s looking positive at the end of day one.
Weather
Sunny
Air
28°C
Track
53°C
Humidity
41%
Free Practice Results
1 Davide Guigliano 1m43.323s ITA DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
2 Jonathan Rea 1m43.381s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Tom Sykes 1m43.596s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Chaz Davies 1m43.776s GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
5 Ayrton Badovini 1m43.819s ITA BMW JR Racing Team
6 Alex Lowes 1m43.942s GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
7 Sylvain Guintoli 1m44.118s FRA HONDA Pata Honda World Superbike Team
8 Leon Haslam 1m44.134s GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
9 Jordi Torres 1m44.240s ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
11 Michael van der Mark 1m44.388s NED HONDA Pata Honda World Superbike Team