Pata Maxus Yamaha’s Andrea Locatelli and Jonathan Rea got to work today in Friday’s Free Practice at the team’s home event at Donington Park, for Round 7 of the 2025 FIM Superbike World Championship.
With air temperatures reaching 31 degrees Celsius, the park grounds of the East Midlands venue could easily be mistaken for a European holiday destination as cloudless skies and relentless sunshine greeted the WorldSBK field today.
Locatelli’s 45 laps across both Free Practice 1 and 2 and Rea’s 36 laps will provide plenty of data for Yamaha’s engineers and the team to go through overnight, as high temperatures will mean making the most of managing tyre wear and low grip across the long feature races.
Elsewhere in the paddock, Ampito Crescent Yamaha rider Beatriz Neila celebrated her first pole position in the FIM Women’s Circuit Racing World Championship this afternoon, directly supported by the Pata Maxus Yamaha squad.
Saturday promises to be just as hot, starting at 9:00 BST for Free Practice 3 in WorldSBK, Superpole qualifying at 11:00 and lights out for the 23-lap Race 1 at a later time of 15:00.
FULL FREE PRACTICE RESULTS
Andrea Locatelli: P9 – 1’26.903
“I’m reasonably happy with the performance and the rhythm on my R1! The weather here in the UK is unusual this weekend, it’s really, really warm. It will be a difficult race because we have a lot of laps and we may struggle on the rear grip, so we need to try manage this point from the beginning. But, we’re looking forward for tomorrow because we understand very well where to improve. Happy for the first day – okay, the position was not the best but we were just working a lot to prepare for the race. This is the most important, and tomorrow morning we will also try to make a big step in terms of lap time and make a good qualifying. I think we are able to stay on the top five and why not try for the podium in the race? It’s a long race, different conditions but really high temperatures like Misano from a couple of weeks ago – and the bike is working for me in this condition, so let’s see and we will enjoy.”
Jonathan Rea: P17 – 1’27.122
“More challenging first day than we were expecting to be honest! But we probably didn’t make a big enough step in performance between FP1 and FP2, the times are very close in that mid-pack area. I lost a bit of my flow during the session and when we put a new tyre in at the end it was better, but still not good enough to register a time. I feel we really need to improve the entry of the corner – especially in the trail-braking area in the fast and flowing section. The last sector where it’s about brakes and acceleration, I actually feel quite okay! The focus for tonight is just to go through the data, try and understand – I feel like I am riding the bike on the limit, but clearly there is more time to be gained. So, put our heads together as a team and try to find a good way for tomorrow. Good thing is that we got a lot of laps in today, some data to look at and we’ll try again in FP3.”
