Stefan Bradl and the Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team have completed the first day of action for the Riviera di Rimini Round of the 2017 FIM Superbike World Championship, which is currently underway at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. The 27-year-old German rider was 17th in the combined times of today’s two free practice sessions and, therefore, his qualifying will begin in Superpole 1.
On board his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2 machine, Bradl was near the top-10 in the early stages of the morning’s session, before improving on his personal best lap by 0.4secs with a few minutes to go. In the afternoon, however, with increased temperatures and due to a technical issue experienced throughout the session, Stefan was unable to make a further step forwards in terms of speed over a single lap.
World Superbike action will resume tomorrow morning at 8:45 local time (GMT +2) for the third free practice session of the weekend, which will be followed by Superpole 1 (10:30) and by the opening race of Round 7 (13:00).
Stefan Bradl 6
17th
It was quite a busy day. This morning the feeling with the bike was not too bad; I feel that the test we did two weeks ago was very helpful, because we did make a step forwards with the electronics in terms of rideability and throttle connection with the rear wheel. In the afternoon, however, we started with used tyres and the lack of grip turned out to be a problem for everyone. Then we had a problem with the electronics which forced me into the pits for a long period, so I could not complete many laps. We lost a lot of time and that is the reason why we could not improve on our FP1 time. Our potential, though, is much higher, because my feeling with the bike this morning was very positive. Hopefully we’ll be able to turn it into a better performance tomorrow!
Pieter Breddels
We were happy to see Stefan feeling good with the bike this morning and we were looking forward to improving some more this afternoon. The track was really slippery in the afternoon – due to the heat – and that was causing a bit of spinning. Unfortunately, though, we couldn’t work on that because of the electronics issue we experienced, which required some extra effort back at the pit-box and which cost us some valuable time. We’re confident, however, that we can make a big step forwards tomorrow: we’ll make good use of FP3 and Superpole 1 and hopefully we’ll get to the race in a good position
