The eighth Supersport World Championship round got underway with today’s free practice at Donington Park. Having recently completed a test at Cremona Circuit, the Kawasaki WorldSSP Team heads into this round at the historic English circuit keen to score the best possible results.
In hot and sunny conditions, Jeremy Alcoba and Dominique Aegerter took to the track this morning for FP1, a practice session that gives the riders and teams an opportunity to find the best possible technical setup for the subsequent Superpole and Saturday and Sunday’s races.
Aegerter (1’29”961) finished the session in twelfth place, just 0.007 of a second behind teammate Alcoba (1.29”954).
Friday afternoon brought the Superpole, the session that established the grid for Race 1. Alcoba put in an impressive performance, setting a 1’29”128, which proved to be the fourth fastest time of the session. Dominique Aegerter also did well, recording a fastest time of 1’29”622 to finish thirteenth, less than half a second from his teammate.
Thanks to these results, Alcoba will line up on the second row of the grid for Race 1, and Aegerter from the fifth.
Jeremy Alcoba
“This is only the second time I’m racing at this historic track, but I have to say I really like it. Already this morning I found good feeling with the bike and good pace despite lapping alone; I was pretty close to the frontrunners. It was a little windy in qualifying, but this didn’t prevent me from finishing fourth. I haven’t had such a good qualifying for a while, and I even made a few small mistakes on my flying lap – otherwise I could have started on the front row. I’ll try to do better in tomorrow’s race… look out for me!”
Dominique Aegerter
“It was really hot today. I really like this “old style” track and know it well. We’ve had a positive Friday and have taken a good step forward. In practice, I was lying first at one point and that really motivated me. Unfortunately, we missed out on the top ten in Superpole and I finished thirteenth. I’m happy for Alcoba though; he had a really great qualifying. We tried to help each other on track and for tomorrow I just another two or three tenths to be able to run a strong race. Forza Kawasaki, always!”
