Sunnyvale, Calif., July 30, 2021 – MotoAmerica returned to Minnesota for the first time since 2004 as America’s fastest Superbike competitors were welcomed back to Brainerd International Raceway today.
It was a day of mixed fortunes for Ducati pairing Loris Baz (Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York) and Kyle Wyman (Panera Bread Ducati), with Baz running P2 by the narrowest of margins behind runaway series leader Jake Gagne (Yamaha).
Under the watchful eye of Ducati Sporting Director, Paolo Ciabatti, who flew in from Italy for the event, Baz completed 18 laps of the 2.5 mile Brainerd venue, finishing 0.280s off Gagne in Free Practice 1 and a scant 0.128s behind in Qualifying 1.
The French ace thus has an excellent chance to capture his first career MotoAmerica victory when competition commences with race one on Saturday, July 31, at 3:00 pm CDT.
For Wyman, however, Brainerd was not a happy hunting ground as the Arizona resident made the call to withdraw from further competition due to excessive pain from his still healing broken elbow suffered in race two at Road America.
Wyman completed 40 laps in the pre-race test on Thursday and a further 15 today in FP1, but citing strength and endurance issues with holding onto the Panera Bread Ducati V4 R over a full race distance, decided to call it a day.
Wyman hopes to return to action at round seven of the 2021 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship at the Pittsburgh International Race Complex, Pittsburgh, on August 13-15.
FP1 Final Standing
P1 – Jake Gagne (Yamaha) 1:30.651
P2 – Loris Baz (Ducati) 1:30.931
P3 – Cameron Petersen (Suzuki) 1:31.431
P4 – Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha) 1:31.435
P5 – Bobby Fong (Suzuki) 1:31.610
P9 – Kyle Wyman (Ducati) 1:34.221
Qualifying 1 Final Standing
P1 – Jake Gagne (Yamaha) 1:30.572
P2 – Loris Baz (Ducati) 1:30.700
P3 – Cameron Petersen (Suzuki) 1:31.222
P4 – Bobby Fong (Suzuki) 1:31.433
P5 – Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha) 1:31.614
Loris Baz (Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York – Ducati #76)
“It’s been a good day,” Baz said happily. “We’ve been working a lot since yesterday. We didn’t have the best feeling, to be honest, but we tried many setting changes and now I have an idea of the limit and where I need to improve. The V4 R is a bit of a beast over the bumps so we experimented a lot with different lines and tires, and we are closing the gap—just 0.1 seconds from Jake. This is a really good thing. Honestly, I was disappointed after Q1. I wanted to improve more but I had an issue with the tire, so we’ll try again tomorrow. It’s been a good weekend so far and great to have Mr. Ciabatti (Ducati Corse Sporting Director) with us. It shows how important this project is to Ducati. Everyone in the team is pushing really hard, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
Kyle Wyman (Panera Bread Ducati – Ducati #33)
“I did about 40 laps yesterday but I had an incident where I saved a high side that broke apart the scar tissue from the plate, which was not all that fun. I kept riding yesterday but my arm was very sore overnight with lots of inflammation and swelling. Today I was just trying to get up to speed, but I’m not riding at the level I would like and I’m not able to sustain the pace for as long as I need to. It’s not an ideal situation at all, so it’s best to call it and come back swinging at Pittsburgh in two weeks.”
