The second round of the Supersport World Championship got underway today at the Autodromo Internacional di Algarve in Portimao, Portugal, with the riders taking to the track for free practice and Superpole.
Having completed testing at the Cremona Circuit, the two Kawasaki WorldSSP riders, Spaniard Jeremy Alcoba and Swiss rider Dominique Aegerter, were back aboard their Ninja ZX-6R 636 machines for free practice, a session in which they worked to adapt the setup of their bike to the winding Portuguese track. Alcoba placed eleventh (1’44”755) and Aegerter twenty-fourth (1’45”713).
Superpole ran in the afternoon, establishing the grid positions for race 1. Both riders improved on their lap times, the Spaniard putting in a best of 1’44”378 to qualify thirteenth, and the Swiss rider concluding sixteenth with a time of 1’44”690.
Alcoba will start from the fifth row and Aegerter from the sixth for tomorrow’s Race 1, which will run in the early afternoon over a distance of 17 laps.
Jeremy Alcoba
“A challenging day for sure. We had different plans for the day but then had some difficulties we had to overcome. A banal electronics problem prevented us from exploiting FP1 and in Superpole, the red flag came out just as we’d put in the fresh tyre. We returned to the track for the final minutes and were still able to improve. Our starting position penalises us though and doesn’t represent our real potential, but I’ll do my best to make up as much ground as possible in the race, with the aim of fighting for the podium.”
Dominique Aegerter
“We constantly improved today and this bodes well for the races. My starting position isn’t what we wanted but in tomorrow’s warm-up we’ll try some new solutions that will hopefully allow us to be more competitive. I’ll work hard to close the gap with respect to the riders in front and to score a good result.”
