The Superpole and first race of the fourth Superbike World Championship round were held today at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.
Yesterday, Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team rider Bradley Ray took part in the first two practices, which he finished twentieth with a time of 1’43”719. This morning, after completing the third free practice, the young British rider competed in Superpole, which established the grid positions for the first two races of the weekend. Ray significantly improved on his best time and closed nineteenth thanks to a best lap of 1’42”307. With this result he started the afternoon’s race, which ran in hot and sunny conditions, from the seventh row. Bradley made a very fast start that allowed him to move up into fifteenth position, but during the course of lap four the race was interrupted with a red flag following a crash. The race restarted but was reduced to 17 laps. The Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team rider again made a strong start and got into a good rhythm, which saw him climb up through the field and cross the line thirteenth, a result that gave him his first world championship points of the season.
Tomorrow morning the Brit will line up for the Superpole Race, before competing in the afternoon’s second and final race.
"I’m really pleased to have scored our first championship points. Despite an unlucky Superpole, Bradley managed the tyre wear very well in the race to achieve a good result. I want to thank the entire team for their hard work”.
“After the complicated races at Assen, I’m pleased that we’ve been able to score three points here. We’re moving in the right direction, and this is very important. The race was positive not only in terms of the result, but also because we’ve better understood how the tyres behave over long distance. With a better start, perhaps I could have gone for the top ten. For tomorrow I think that the sprint race will be interesting, while we might able to improve the bike and aim for the points zone again in the second long race”.
