Kawasaki WorldSSP Team riders Jeremy Alcoba and Dominique Aegerter took part in the first race of the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve WorldSSP weekend, on Saturday 28 March, with Alcoba ending inside the top ten and Aegerter scoring his first points of the season in 11th position.
After Superpole qualifying, which was held on Friday 28 March, Aegerter started Race One from 15th place on the grid. Alcoba was adjudged to have ignored a yellow warning flag in Superpole and was thus dropped to the last starting place on the grid for Race One. He launched from 32nd position, but was to make remarkable progress through the pack once the action got underway. He made up 11 position on the very first lap.
Jeremy would end up tenth at the chequered flag, having made up 22 places in a determined ride through the field. He would have been ninth, had he not just lost out on a drag race to the line after exiting the final corner. He missed out on a top nine finish by a mere 0.004 seconds.
Having set the ninth fastest lap of the opening race, Jeremy will now start Race Two on Sunday from the third row of the grid.
Aegerter placed 11th in the final Race One classification, making his first mark in the championship rankings after finding some tech issues during the opening round in Australia last month.
Like Race One, Race Two at Portimao on Sunday is scheduled for 17 laps of the 4.592km long hillside circuit.
Manuel Puccetti
“Alcoba made a fantastic recovery, starting from the back of the grid to finish top ten. Tomorrow he’ll start P9 and we’re sure he can run another great race. Aegerter completed his first race with the Kawasaki, scoring important championship points and proving competitive.”
Jeremy Alcoba
“We had a strong race with a strong pace. To come back from P32 on the grid to P10 at the end means I am quite happy. I was also happy with the feeling of the bike, and we set the ninth fastest lap of the race, which means we will start Race Two from P9, on the third row. That’s a lot better than starting from P32, so for sure we could have a really good race. I think the second race can be better.”
Dominique Aegerter
“I got my first points of the season in the first race at Portimao. We still have a lot of work in front of us, and starting from 15th place on the grid was not so easy. I need to get confidence back and give the team a lot of data to work on. I am looking forward to Race Two, and I hope we can improve a little bit in the warm-up session. I hope we have more beautiful weather and sunshine on Sunday, and that we can go in the direction of the top ten.”
