Team HRC returns to work with testing at Aragón

“It felt good to get back on my CBR after one month and two stints in MotoGP, and I’m very pleased that I was immediately fast after just a couple of laps, re-adapting my riding style to the Superbike quite quickly. The MotoGP feeling is definitely different of course, but useful as well, because I feel that I changed something in my style over the last couple of weeks that might also help me in SBK. In the end, every racing experience helps and allows you to keep learning and improving as a rider. As for this test, we consider it a very good session and we worked a lot even if conditions were difficult due to the wind. That prevented us from testing several things because it would have been hard to get a real feel for them with those gusts of wind. So, we mainly worked on the setup of the bike and on my riding position. We changed a few details here and there and made a step forward, I think. On day two, with less wind, we tested those modifications again in the morning and they again worked well, so that’s positive. A few new items also helped us to improve a little but when the wind picked up again after lunch on day 2, we decided to finish earlier. We nevertheless leave here in a good mood.”

“I’m happy to be back riding my bike after the summer break, a short summer break in our case! The test has been good except for the weather conditions, which were tricky in terms of the wind. On the first morning the track was also a bit dirty, so we weren’t able to test so many new things. I mainly focused on myself and on making some adjustments to the bike setup for this track, which is one I struggled at last time I was here. It also took me some time to regain my feeling with the tyres on the back of my experience at Suzuka. So, the test has allowed me to gradually rebuild my confidence. We’ve focused on acceleration, one of our weak points, as this track is good for that kind of test because the grip is not the best. We gathered a great deal of information for the engineers to analyse and are ready for the second part of the season, when we will visit tracks that I think suit us better, so we’ll try to exploit that factor.”