Garrett Gerloff returned to action with his Kawasaki WorldSBK Team on the first day of the second round of the 2025 WorldSBK Championship, which is taking place at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve between 28-30 March.
Having not tested at the Portuguese track recently, unlike many of his peers, Friday was the first day on track for Garrett and his team since the opening round of the season in Australia in late February.
Warm track and ambient conditions welcomed Gerloff to the 4.592km long ‘Portimao’ circuit, but a technical issue in the first free practice session held back the team’s early preparations.
FP2 allowed the Kawasaki WorldSBK team to set more laps and try to find a strong race set-up, but the lack of opening day track time compared to his many rivals saw Garrett playing catch-up. He was finally ranked 19th overall in the combined practice times after day one.
There will be one more free practice session on Saturday, and then Superpole qualifying will determined the final grid places for Race One, which gets underway at 14.00 local time in Portugal.
Garrett Gerloff: “It was a more difficult first day than we wanted, but it was really nice to see the team after one month of being away. We just had some bad luck and we missed most of the first session for a technical problem. In the second session, I was really trying my best to find time and go as fast I could but I was just struggling to find a good rhythm with myself and the bike and track. We just need to find more for Saturday, so we’ll study the data and come better tomorrow.”
