HARD-EARNED SEVENTH PLACE FOR VAN DER MARK IN RACE TWO AT MOTORLAND ARAGÓN
Race two of the third round of the FIM Superbike World Championship proved to be a challenging one for the Honda WorldSBK Team as Michael van der Mark claimed a seventh place finish in front of the MotorLand Aragón crowd. Van der Mark enjoyed a great start from 11th place on the grid, immediately setting his sights on sixth after a good first half of the opening lap.
The 23-year-old from Rotterdam then moved up to fifth aboard his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP after a successful overtaking manoeuvre on Alex Lowes. As the race progressed, van der Mark could not stay with the front-runners and sensibly decided to ride at his own pace, while defending fifth place from Jordi Torres. In the closing stages of the encounter, he lost one more position to a recovering Davide Giugliano and was seventh at the chequered flag.
Michael van der Mark (7th): “The race was more difficult than I expected. We lost some time in the warm up so I could only do a few laps. I had a great start and I was able to make up some positions, but I could feel that the bike setup was not working as well as it did in practice. I did all that was possible to keep a good pace but in the end I was losing a lot of ground. I’m glad we could score some points today but this is definitely not the position I want to be in. Now I cannot wait to go back on track at Assen, where I’m sure we can bounce back to the front.”
The next round of the 2016 FIM Superbike World Championship will take place in two weekends at the Dutch TT Assen circuit.