Work in progress for Team HRC in free practice at Portimão

The Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal is the stage for this weekend’s penultimate round of the 2023 Superbike World Championship, in which Team HRC is competing with Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.

The first practice session got underway as scheduled mid-morning, in warm and sunny conditions. The two free practice sessions saw the team make good progress, both Vierge and Lecuona able to set a series of encouraging lap times. By the end of the first 45-minute session and having made a series of set-up changes along the way, Lecuona was lying seventh thanks to a best of 1’41.563 followed by Vierge, twelfth with a 1’42.024.

The factory riders were back out later in the day for the second practice. Despite the session running on much hotter asphalt (43°C), Lecuona immediately improved on his earlier time but, having chosen not to use a soft tyre and to focus instead on the race-setup of his CBR1000RR-R, he placed eleventh in the day’s very close aggregate standings. In light of this, his personal best of 1’41.379 looks promising ahead of tomorrow’s Superpole qualifying session and first race.

Vierge also made gradual progress as the phase went on, although not as much as he perhaps expected. His best time of 1’41.718, albeit less than four tenths from his teammate’s fastest time, saw him place seventeenth overall, which leaves him looking for more before the lights go out at 2.00pm tomorrow afternoon.