VAN DER MARK THIRTEENTH FOR PORTUGUESE ENCOUNTER
Michael van der Mark will start tomorrow’s two 20-lap races at the 4.592km Autodromo Internacional do Algarve from the fifth row after being unable to graduate from Superpole 1 this afternoon. The Dutch rider, 22, is still looking for more stability with his CBR under heavy braking and, despite improving his lap time in each session, the rookie SBK rider was thirteenth fastest in this afternoon’s Superpole sessions.
Michael van der Mark – P13, 1m43.272s: “We didn’t have an easy day today for sure and we changed the bike a lot, but it didn’t really bring us much in terms of a lap time so we’ve definitely got some more work to do. In Superpole on race tyres I was second fastest and quite confident that I could improve. But I’ve had some problems with the front all weekend and putting the qualifier in seemed to make the problem worse. Anyway, it’s not a great position to be in but we’ll look at everything tonight and I’m sure the guys can come up with a good plan. Hopefully, if I can get good starts tomorrow, I can make up some places in the two races.”