Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki WorldSBK Team) had to make two Race One starts on his Ninja ZX-10RR at the Circuito Estoril on Saturday, 11 October, after a red flag stopped the first attempt at running a 21-lap race. In the 20-lap restart, Garrett finished tenth, improving on his starting position by three places.
Before Race One got underway in the Portuguese sunshine, Garrett had taken part in the Superpole Qualifying session that determines the grid spots for the opening race of each weekend. He set a 1’35.827, which was just 0.664 seconds from the rider in third place, but Garrett was not quite as high up the grid ranking as he had hoped to be.
Gerloff started the first race from 13th place on the grid, and on the fifth row.
The first race was stopped after a multiple rider crash in the first turn. After some track cleaning and a quick restart procedure, the first WorldSBK race of the weekend was run over 20 laps.
As the race progressed, so did Garrett. He got into tenth place on lap 11, and remained there until the chequered flag came out. In finishing tenth, the rider from Texas scored six championship points.
Now Gerloff will start Sunday’s ten-lap Tissot-Superpole Race from his original 13th place on the grid, with his starting position for the final 21-lap race of the weekend determined by his finishing position in the ‘sprint’ race.
Garrett Gerloff
“I have been trying my best at Estoril and in Race One I was riding as hard as I could. I qualified in 13th place after Superpole and was only about six tenths of a second from a front-row place. That is still a lot of time difference, but I expected to be closer with the lap time that I did. In the first race, we had an early red flag, which was no good. I had a decent launch from the grid in the restart, but I was just struggling to find pace and make up positions. It was kind of a lonely race. A top ten was good for the team, but for sure we want more. We have more, so we will try again tomorrow.”
