Pata Maxus Yamaha’s Andrea Locatelli continued his route towards fighting at the front of the 2026 FIM Superbike World Championship pack at Balaton Park, taking a solid seventh-place finish ahead of teammate Xavi Vierge, who progressed valiantly to tenth from P16 on the grid in Race 1 today.
The team’s #55 rider qualified strongly to start from the middle of the second row, aiming to go with the front group at the beginning of Race 1 this afternoon in Hungary. When the lights went out, “Loka” got a good launch off the line, but was pinched between Yari Montella and eventual podium-finisher Miguel Oliveira, banging bars in the run down to the ultra-tight entry into Turn 1. After running inside the top six in the opening laps, Locatelli slipped back to P8 but overtook Alberto Surra for P7 while trying to manage challenging rear grip in the hot conditions towards the end of the 21-Laps.
Vierge and his #97 crew were able to make a clear step forward after a difficult Friday, working to find more confidence for the Spanish rider under braking from Free Practice 3 onwards. Despite a disappointing Superpole, Vierge was able to carve his way through the grid to run ninth by the end of Lap 2 for the main points-paying race and only lost out on the position two laps from the end to cross the line tenth. He hopes to take another step on the final day to be able to improve his grid position for Race 2.
In the FIM Women’s Circuit Racing World Championship, Beatriz Neila (Ampito Crescent Yamaha) took the battle for the Race 1 win to the final lap, going toe-to-toe in another closely-contested fight before crossing the line in second place, as Chloe Jones took P6 for Monster Energy Crescent Yamaha.
The final day in Hungary begins for WorldSBK with Warm Up at 9:20 CEST, the Superpole Race at 11:10 to determine the top nine grid positions for Race 2 at 15:30 – while WorldWCR has Warm Up at 9:00 and Race 2 at 13:00.
Andrea Locatelli – SP: P5 / Race 1: P7
“We did a good qualifying today, and the feeling was not bad in the race – so basically, it was a “quite good day” let’s say, but for sure we will try to improve for tomorrow. I was struggling a bit with the rear grip during the race. In the braking areas we are strong, so this is a good point we can keep and if we can try to find a small step on the rear grip to try to fix this point, we can definitely be better. I feel good but it’s not easy to really push even harder and to be faster in the race, but now we have time to analyse everything and look forward – let’s do another good Superpole Race for grid position in the morning and then fight again in the long race.”
Xavi Vierge – SP: P16 / Race 1: P10
“This weekend is really the first time that I haven’t had a good feeling on the bike and I can’t ride like I always do. We’ve been working a lot to understand what is going on, it’s still our first year together and we’ve arrived to a different track than what we are used to – it’s the first time that we’ve had these challenges. We’ve tried many things and for Race 1, we found a set-up with my R1 that allowed me to ride properly. The goal was to make a very good start, as I did, and then try to go with the guys in front. I think we can be happy with what we managed to do, because the start of the weekend has been difficult and starting P16 is not ideal! We will look to understand what was good from this race and try to make a step forward for tomorrow to improve the overall performance.”
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