A CLOSE FOURTH FOR VAN DER MARK AT LAGUNA SECA
Michael van der Mark has scored a brilliant fourth place in Saturday’s World Superbike race at Laguna Seca. Teammate Nicky Hayden crossed the line in third place at the end of a hard-fought, 25-lap opening race but Van der Mark was right behind his Honda WorldSBK team mate in fourth, after a great recovery from eleventh place on the grid. The young Dutchman was able to make up several positions in the early stages despite a small mistake on lap one and, as the race entered its second half, he joined the battle for third place. With a spectacular overtake on Lowes at turn two at the start of the penultimate lap, van der Mark moved up to fourth and set his sights on his team mate; he then dived on the inside of Hayden at the last hairpin, eventually running wide.
Michael van der Mark (4th): “Superpole wasn’t perfect, so I had to start from eleventh place. I had a good start to the race, but then on the first lap I missed corner and couldn’t get up to speed, so I got passed there. Step by step, I made my way up but despite pushing hard, the gap with Savadori was staying the same and that was a bit frustrating. I was able to get a little bit quicker and pass him, but Lowes wasn’t as easy to overtake. On the last lap, I closed down on Nicky but on the last corner I was simply not close enough to make it stick. Fourth place is a great result nevertheless and I’m back to fourth place in the standings; it’s good that it was Nicky the one getting on the podium today.”
The second World Superbike race will get underway Sunday at 14:30 local time (GMT -7), after the traditional 15-minute warm up scheduled at 11:00.