Sixth for Lecuona in race 1 at Barcelona with Vierge in eighth

Team HRC riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge cross the line sixth and eighth respectively in the first of the weekend’s Superbike World Championship races at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit in Spain.

The morning’s third and final free practice allowed both Lecuona and Vierge to make final refinements and preparations ahead of the qualifying session. Following two promising sessions on Friday, the Team HRC duo were determined to maximise the limited track time when Superpole got underway, both pushing to set the fastest possible lap times. With just two minutes to go, the session was stopped with a red flag when another rider crashed, his bike left in the run-off area. Back on track just a few minutes later, but with only a little over two minutes at their disposal, Iker was able to set a 1’40.783 in the final seconds, a time that was enough to secure him a worthy fifth place on the starting grid. Thanks to a 1’41.423 set in the early stages of the phase, Xavi qualified in twelfth position, meaning a fourth row start for him in the afternoon’s first race.

Race 1 ran in pretty hot conditions, similar to yesterday (air temp. 28°C, track temp. 47°C). From the second row of the grid, Lecuona unfortunately got caught up in traffic through the first turn and slipped back to twelfth. Contrarily, Vierge made a very fast start and moved up to seventh. Unfortunately a crash for Granado on lap four meant that the race was red flagged and restarted according to the quick start procedure. Riders assumed the positions that they held at the time of the incident, meaning that the HRC representatives lined up eighth (Xavi) and eleventh (Iker) for the restarted race.

A less than ideal start by Iker Lecuona saw him drop back to seventeenth place two corners in, a setback that he was able to recover from in part, moving back up into tenth place by the end of lap one, just behind his teammate in ninth. Lapping one behind the other through the opening stages, Xavi and Iker lay eighth and ninth on lap three and exchanged places soon afterwards. Up into seventh by lap seven, Lecuona ran a consistent second half of the race, demonstrating the exact same pace as the podium contenders but too far away to have any chance to fight for it.  Passing Bassani in the final stages, Iker crossed the line sixth to score solid championship points once more. Running with very similar pace, but not fully comfortable with the rear grip, Vierge held ninth position through the central phase of the race before progressing to eighth in the final stages and closing hot on the heels of his team-mate.

Tomorrow, the Team HRC riders will be back out at the same track for the Superpole sprint race and second full length race.