PATA YAMAHA MAKE SOLID START IN THE MISANO SUN
Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team’s Michael van der Mark and Alex Lowes made solid progress during Free Practice on Friday at a sun-drenched Misano, for round seven of the 2017 FIM World Superbike World Championship. Track temperatures reached 50°C and both riders worked hard in the heat to make it through to SP2 automatically, with Van der Mark ending the day in eighth position and Lowes in tenth.
Van der Mark was feeling confident that he could hit the ground running here at Misano after only just missing out on the podium in race two at Donington and the team’s subsequent private test at Misano two weeks ago. In FP1 he managed a 1:35.867, but didn’t quite have the right feeling with his R1 to perform at his best. In FP2 van der Mark focused on trying to rediscover the feeling he had at the test, showing good consistency and promising race pace, improving to a 1:35.718 to end the day in eighth overall, 0.817s off the pace of the leader.
Michael van der Mark: “I have mixed feelings today. We left the test here two weeks ago full of confidence and I expected to come here and be fast straight away. It was a bit of a surprise, because we were struggling today in the areas that we improved during the test. For me it’s a question of why are we struggling in those points, as the temperatures are the same as the test and the track is the same. In the end, we made it through to SP2 which is good, but we need to find the rhythm we had at the test. If we can do that we will be a lot closer to the guys at the front. We know we can do it, but first we have to find out why it is not working today. I had good consistency, but we were missing out under braking, and we have to try and find more grip.”
Results
Free Practice 1