Garrett Gerloff finished sixth overall in the combined Free Practice time sheets after the first day of track action at Donington Park, on Friday 11 July. This pace delivered his best start to a race weekend since he joined Kawasaki Team this season.
The Texan enjoyed the summer weather conditions that graced the 4.023km long circuit in the East Midlands of England; so much so that he was fifth in the afternoon’s FP2 session, before being ranked sixth overall when those times were combined with those set in FP1 in the morning.
Gerloff, who has recently re-signed with his Kawasaki WorldSBK Team for the 2026 season, was at ease with the set-up on his Ninja ZX-10RR from the start.
After collating all the data and sector-by-sector information from the first two free practice sessions he will work with his crew to try and improve the set-up even more, particularly in the first two sectors of the lap.
Garret and his crew will now prepare for a final FP3 practice session on Saturday 12 July, which will be followed by Superpole Qualifying and the first 23-lap WorldSBK race of the weekend. Sunday 13 July will feature one ten-lap Superpole Race and a second full 23-lap race to finish the Donington WorldSBK weekend.
Garrett Gerloff
“That was the best Friday I have had. I have not seen too many one digit numbers next to my name. The bike feels good here and I like this track – so that helps for sure. I also think we are just getting into a better window with the bike. So, we were able to start from a better place with everything and that paid off today. We can see from the sector times that in S1 and S2 I am not great, but in S3 and S4 I am close to the top. The bike is so good in really hard braking areas, going down to first gear, and then going out of the corner again. The lap times are really, really close here, and at one point I think there was one tenth of a second between eight guys in the mid-pack.”
