Team HRC riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge are out at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, their home track, for the fourth round of the 2023 Superbike World Championship. Separated by just 27 thousandths of a second in terms of lap time, both made a solid start at their home track.

Despite having jumped straight back on the CBR1000RR-R after riding the HRC MotoGP bike just last weekend, Iker was immediately up among the frontrunners during Friday morning’s FP1, showing consistent pace and setting a number of fast laps. His best time, a 1’42.068, saw him place fifth at the end of this first phase. Team-mate Vierge also made good progress throughout the 45-minute session, a fastest time of 1’42.095 securing him eighth. This, despite the fact that an innocuous crash in the final minutes prevented him from further improving on this time.

The second session ran in sunny conditions much like FP1 but on much hotter asphalt (49°C). Focusing largely on their race pace on used tyres, both feel optimistic heading into the weekend. Thanks to their best times set during the morning’s session, Lecuona rounded out day one in fifth position in the combined standings, closely followed by Vierge in eighth place.

Tomorrow will see Team HRC return to the Barcelona track for Superpole and the first of the races making up this fourth championship round.

Iker Lecuona 7

P5

“I’m happy to be back here with my team and bike. We arrived having already done a lot of setup work during the recent test we had. To be honest, after spending the last weekend in MotoGP I was expecting to need a bit more time to regain that WorldSBK feeling and so I was surprised to feel comfortable and fast after just four or five laps. It was a very good session and we just weren’t able to find the feeling with a different tyre spec, basically because it’s the first time we’re trying it after having missed the chance to use it during testing due to my crash. In the afternoon I spoke with my crew chief and basically changed the plan entirely, because I thought we should focus on working on race distance. It was something I had been thinking all day and we’re very happy with the outcome of the afternoon’s session because there was much less of a drop compared to last year, despite the fact that the temperature was higher and that I always lapped alone. So I’m very happy and we will now analyse the data and see if there is any fine tuning we can do to further reduce the tyre drop. I want to thank the team for their hard work and tomorrow we go again!”

Xavi Vierge 97

P8

“It has been a good day for us, and I had good feeling right from the start despite a small crash in FP1. It was insignificant, in fact it was good to find the limit early, if anything. Thanks to the team because they repaired the bike in time for FP2 and that session also went well. We completed two long runs to try and understand our pace in such hot conditions and the feeling was not so bad. As ever, we need to improve a bit with the new tyres, but the race pace is there so I’m happy with how day one has gone. Now we’ll see if we can make another little step forward tomorrow. As always, our first target for Saturday is to do as well as we can in qualifying.”

WorldSBK 2023
Free Practice Round 04   Catalunya

Free Practices Combined Results after FP2

Sunny
Humidity
47%
Track Temp
49°C
Air Temp
28°C
Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Constructor Time/Gap
1 Bautista Alvaro 1 SPA ARUBA Racing - Ducati Ducati 1'41.486
2 Rinaldi Michael Ruben 21 ITA ARUBA Racing - Ducati Ducati 1'41.633 0.147
3 Rea Jonathan 65 GBR Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK Kawasaki 1'41.652
4 Razgatlioglu Toprak 54 TUR PATA YAMAHA with BRIXX WorldSBK Yamaha 1'41.719 0.233
5 Lecuona Iker 7 SPA Team HRC Honda 1'42.068 0.582
6 Locatelli Andrea 55 ITA PATA YAMAHA with BRIXX WorldSBK Yamaha 1'42.079 0.593
7 Aegerter Dominique 77 SWI GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team Yamaha 1'42.084 0.598
8 Vierge Xavi 97 SPA Team HRC Honda 1'42.095 0.609
9 Lowes Alex 22 GBR Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK Kawasaki 1'42.229 0.743
10 Gerloff Garrett 31 USA Bonovo Action BMW BMW 1'42.235 0.749
11 Redding Scott 45 GBR ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team BMW 1'42.467 0.981
12 Gardner Remy 87 AUS GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team Yamaha 1'42.649 1.163
13 Bassani Axel 47 ITA Motocorsa Racing Ducati 1'42.655 1.169
14 Petrucci Danilo 9 ITA BARNI Spark Racing Team Ducati 1'42.753 1.267
15 Baz Loris 76 FRA Bonovo Action BMW BMW 1'43.064 1.578
16 Öttl Philipp 5 GER Team GOELEVEN Ducati 1'43.358 1.872
17 Granado Eric 51 BRA PETRONAS MIE Racing HONDA Team Honda 1'43.423 1.937
18 Konig Oliver 52 CZE ORELAC Racing VERDNATURA Kawasaki 1'43.438 1.952
19 Syahrin Hafizh 35 MAL PETRONAS MIE Racing HONDA Team Honda 1'43.576 2.090
20 Ray Bradley 28 GBR Yamaha MotoxRacing WorldSBK Team Yamaha 1'43.719 2.233
21 Baldassarri Lorenzo 34 ITA GMT94 Yamaha Yamaha 1'43.902 2.416
22 Vinales Isaac 32 SPA TPR by Vinales Racing Kawasaki 1'44.233 2.747
23 LOPES Ivo Miguel 75 POR ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team BMW 1'44.314 2.828
24 Sykes Tom 66 GBR Kawasaki Puccetti Racing Kawasaki 1'44.486 3.000
25 Ruiu Gabriele 16 ITA B-Max Racing Team BMW 1'46.711 5.225
Location Information

Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya Carrer Mas Moreneta, 08160 Montmeló, Barcelona, Spain Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya

POLE POSITION Right
LENGHT 4.627 Km
CORNERS 14
RIGHT CORNERS 8
LEFT CORNERS 6

Records

Pole Record 1'39.489 (168,513 Km/h) T.Razgatlioglu (BMW M 1000 RR, 2024)
Race Record 1'40.955 (166,066 Km/h) N. Bulega (Ducati V4 R, 2024, SPRC)
All Time Record 1'39.489 (168,513 Km/h) T.Razgatlioglu (BMW M 1000 RR, 2024)
2024 Race 1 Winner T.Razgatlioglu (BMW M 1000 RR)
2024 Superpole Winner T.Razgatlioglu (BMW M 1000 RR)
2024 Race 2 Winner A. Bautista (Ducati V4 R)